ass 3_L>_2,J3S 

Book_____ u 3U___ 

1*30 



PRESENTED |;Y 



I 




THE 



THEOLOGICAL WORKS 



OF 



THOMAS PAINE. 



TO WHICH ARK ADDED THE 

PROFESSION OF FAITH OF A SAVOYARD VICAR, 

J. J. ROUSSEAU; 
AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 




NEW-YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM CARVER, 
1830. 



'I & 



PREFACE 



Had not religion been made an article of merehanaise, and a 
class of men set apart to retail it for the benefit of themselves, 
the enormous evils that have resulted, would not have occurred. 
As it is, an opposition to the dogmas of a preacher of any de- 
nomination has a direct tendency, by lowering his tenets in the 
estimation of the public, to depreciate the profits of his trade. 
In self defence, therefore, he turns upon the assailant, and ap- 
plies to him names to which he attaches opprobrious meanings, 
such as heretic, infidel, &c. Heretic, however, in the literal 
sense of the term, means simply a person who entertains an 
opinion on doctrinal points of religion contrary to the generally 
received opinion, at any particular period. Thus the catholics, 
by way of reproach, denominate the protestants heretics, and the 
protestants, in their turn, apply the same epithet to universalists 
and unitarians. The late Rev. John Mason, to show his strong 
disapprobation of the latter sect, went so far as to declare to his 
congregation, that he would not disgrace the devil so much as ta 
compare them to him. 

As to the term infidel, all sects are infidels to each other, in 
consequence of the discrepance in their respective tenets, which 
laymen have taken no more part in forming than in their own 
creation. They are made for them by persons who are paid for 
their services, and whose interest it is to render them obscure* 
that they may require explanation. As well, therefore, might 
mankind quarrel about their stature, as about a difference of 
opinions in the acquirement of which they have been entirely 
passive, and of the truth of which, neither laymen nor their 
teachers can have the least possible knowledge. 

The w r hole mystery, as before observed, of the heart burnings 
and ill will among Christian sects, arises from having made of 
religion a trade ; which has caused a rivalry and contention 



n 



PREFACE. 



among the professors of the art of soul-saving that would dis- 
grace any other business whatever. It is of course the interest 
of every sectarian preacher to draw after him as many hearers 
as possible, in order to increase his emoluments ; and the means 
naturally suggested to effect this, is to abuse and vilify all other 
schemes of salvation but his own. 

Thus have religious parties been formed, and deadly animosi- 
ties engendered and cherished throughout Christendom ever since 
the introduction of the Jewish and Christian dogmas ; and the 
gibbet and the stake have been appealed to as the ultimate rea- 
son of fanatics. Well, therefore, might the venerable John 
Adams exclaim, as reported by Jefferson, " This would be the 
best of worlds, if there were no religion in it." 

The only cure for the evils of religion, the curse of supersti- 
tion, which has been entailed upon mankind by an interested 
priesthood, is for every one to think for himself, and not pay 
others to think for him ; to reassume that common sense with 
which nature has endowed him, and of which he has been de- 
prived by his spiritual teachers. 

" We have," says Jefferson, (see Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 
322,) " most unwisely committed to the hierophants of our par- 
ticular superstition, the direction of public opinion, that lord of 
the universe. We have given them stated and privileged days 
to collect and catechise us, opportunities of delivering their ora- 
cles to the people in mass, and of moulding their minds as wax 
in the hollow of their hands. But in despite of their fulminations 
against endeavours to enlighten the general mind, to improve 
the reason of the people, and encourage them in the use of it, 
the liberality of this state will support this institutions* and give 
fair play to the cultivation of reason." 

The manner in which ministers of the gospel are got up, is 
worthy a passing notice. Young men who receive a collegiate 
education, are governed in the choice of business, by the advice 
of parents, the opinion they entertain of the abilities they pos- 
sess, or the apparent prospect of the greatest gain in either of 
the learned professions, without regard to their religious propen- 
sities. Those who determine on divinity, in the last year of 
their term at college, hold conference meetings, and exercise 
themselves in the art of praying, and in disquisitions on religion. 

Divines thus formed, can readily accommodate their religion 
to circumstances. If they find the pulpit overstocked in the 
persuasion in which they were educated, they often change their 
opinion, and adc pt another creed. There are several instances 
in this city, of young men, who were educated presbyterians, 
becoming episcopal clergymen, in consequence, as they declared 
to intimate friends, of that church paying better than the one 
they abandoned. Men of liberal education, who have gained 

* The University of Charlottesville, w Virginia,, of which Mr. Jefferson 
Wag the founder* 



PREFACE. 



V 



some knowledge of the frauds of religion, can easier change 
their creeds than sincere devotees who are duped by them. 

And what does their preaching amount to ? What is the mighty 
boon obtained, as is said* by the excruciating sufferings even of 
a God ; the glad tidings trumpeted forth by divines, and hailed 
with great joy by their grateful hearers ? What is it, but that a 
very small portion of the human species will be made happy in 
another life, and that the remainder will be roasted, in a brim- 
stone fire, to all eternity ? Are these glad tidings 1 Are they 
not rather to be deprecated as the tidings of damnation ? Shall 
human reason be tortured for arguments in proof of a doctrine 
so abhorrent to justice and humanity ; so abhorrent to any ration- 
al idea that can be conceived of a Creator, and of every principle 
of right and wrong established among men 1 The chances in 
this lottery of life and death, according to the statements of the- 
ologians, are at least, a thousand to one against every living soul ; 
and yet the scheme is cherished as an infinite benefit to mankind. 
And what are the alleged causes that involved the human race 
in this shocking predicament ? Why, that a woman in some age 
of the world, nobody knows when or where, eat an apple, or 
some other fruit, contrary to the commands of her Maker. 

" The very head and front of her offending 
Hath this extent, no more." 

Upon this pitiful story, the whole foundation of priestcraft is 
laid. It is followed up with the sacrifice of a god to atone for 
the monstrous offence of poor Eve ; and then comes the great 
benefit of the boasted atonement ; which, by the way, is to pro- 
cure salvation only for those who had been previously elected 
for that purpose ; and who are coerced into the true faith through 
the instrumentality of the Holy Ghost, without the least claims 
on account of their own merits ; whilst the rest, who could be 
no more implicated in the faux pas of the first pair than the 
former, are debarred that favour by an absolute decree. " With- 
out controversy, great is the mystery of godliness." 

It is matter of surprise that any person, who believes in the 
existence of a Supreme Being, should have the hardihood to at- 
tribute to him such deliberate cruelty, such pitiful subterfuge, 
such palpable mockery of justice ? 

All clergymen deem themselves to be numbered among the 
elect, and are so considered by their followers ; and that the bulk 
of their congregations are doomed to perdition. In this point of 
view, it is heart-rending for a man of sense and feeling to wit- 
ness with what sang froid, and cruel, I had almost said savage 
exultation, they expatiate upon the tortures of the damned: 
whilst their hearers, as tame and passive as lambs, listen with 
reverential awe and respect, and appear to acquiesce in the just- 
ness of their condemnation. In fact, the members of presbyte- 
rian congregation?, in general, woufd not like their minister if he 



vi 



PREFACE. 



did not preach hell fire as the just reward of their backslidings, 
and want of faith and zeal in the cause of Christ ; and in default 
thereof, would change him for another more orthodox. As is 
required, they profess a willingness to be damned, provided 
nevertheless, that the glory of God shall be thereby enhanced. 

The following are fair samples of the eternal ding-dong upon 
this subject, with which calvinistic divines regale their hearers. 

The late Dr. Jonathan Edwards, (whose writings are highly 
applauded by the English reviewers, who seem to consider it 
their interest to commend those whose aim is to stupify and 
besot the minds of the people,) in a sermon on the duration and 
torments of hell, says, 

" Be entreated to consider attentively how great and awful a 
thing Eternity is. Although you cannot comprehend it the mor© 
by considering, yet you may be made more sensible that it is not 
a thing to be disregarded. Do but consider what it is to suffer 
extreme pain for ever and ever ; to suffer it day and night, from 
one day to another, from one year to another, from one age to 
another, from one thousand ages to another ; and so adding age 
to age, and thousands to thousands, in pain, in wailing and tor- 
menting, groaning and shrieking, and gnashing your teeth ; with 
your souls full of dreadful grief and amazement, with your bodies, 
and every member of them, full of racking torture ; without any 
possibility of getting ease ; without any possibility of moving 
God to pity by your cries ; without any possibility of hiding 
yourselves from him ; without any possibility of diverting your 
thoughts from your pain ; without any possibility of obtaining 
any manner of mitigation, or help, or change for the better. 
How dismal will it be, when you are under these racking tor- 
ments, to know assuredly that you never, never shall be deliver- 
ed from them." — " The saints in glory will be far more sensible 
how dreadful the wrath of God is, and will better understand 
how terrible the sufferings of the damned are, yet this will be no 
occasion of grief to them, but rejoicing. They will not be sorry 
for the damned ; it will cause no uneasiness or dissatisfaction to 
them, but, on the contrary, when they see this sight it will occa- 
sion rejoicing and excite them to joyful praises." 

The Rev. Dr. Emmons, of Massachusetts, distinguished for 
his piety and biblical knowledge, gives the following lively de- 
scription of the joys of the elect, contrasted with the sufferings 
of the reprobated : 

" The happiness of the elect in heaven will in part consist in 
witnessing the torments of the damned in hell, and among these 
it may be their own children, parents, husbands, wives, and 
friends on earth. 

" One part of the business of the blessed is to celebrate the 
doctrine of reprobation. While the decree of reprobation is ex- 
ternally executing on the vessels of wrath, the smoke of their 
torment will be eternally ascending in the view of the vessels of 



PREFACE* 



vii 



mercy, who instead of taking the part of those miserable objects, 
will say amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord. 

" When the saints shall see how great the misery is from 
which God hath saved them, and how great a difference he hath 
made between their state, and the state of others who were by 
nature, and perhaps by practice, no more sinful and ill-deserving 
than they, it will give them more a sense of the wonderfulness 
of God's grace to them. Every time they look upon the damn- 
ed, it will excite in them a lively and admiring sense of the grace 
of God in making them so to differ. The sight of hell torments 
will exalt the happiness of the saints for ever." 

Dr. Parish, of the same state, in a sermon delivered in the 
time of our late war with England, in denunciation of his coun- 
trymen who rendered it their support, exclaimed, " How will 
the supporters of this anti-christian warfare endure their sen- 
tence, endure their own reflections ; endure the fire that for ever 
burns ; the worm that never dies ; the hosannas of heaven, while 
the smoke of their torments will ascend for ever and ever ."' 

Notwithstanding the confidence and apparent self-security in 
which presbyterian ministers animadvert upon the vindictive spirit 
of the Almighty, and the horrors of that hell, which, according tG 
them, he has prepared for the reception of the greatest portion 
of his creatures, if reliance can be had upon the view taken of 
the means necessary for salvation by the late Bishop Hobart, 
their condemnation is inevitable. 

The grand panacea for the cure of all evil, and the restoration 
of man to the favour of the Deity, seems, with the bishop, to 
consist in the due administration of the rite of baptism. In his 
Companion to the Altar, he says : 

" In this church, the body which derives life, strength and 
salvation from Christ its head, baptism was instituted as the sa- 
cred rite of admission. In this regenerating ordinance, fallen 
man is born again from a state of condemnation to a state of 
grace. He obtains a title to the presence of the Holy Spirit, to 
the forgiveness of sins, to all those precious and immortal bless- 
ings which the blood of Christ purchased." Com. for the Altar, 
ed. 1824, p. 186. 

" Wherever the gospel is promulgated, the only mode through 
which we can obtain a title to those blessings and privileges 
which Christ has purchased for his mystical body, the church, is 
the sacrament of baptism. Repentance, faith, and obedience, will 
7iot of themselves be effectual to our salvation. We may sin- 
cerely repent of our sins — heartily believe the Gospel ; we may 
walk in the paths of holy obedience : but until we enter into 
covenant with God by baptism, and ratify our vows of allegiance 
and duty at the holy sacrament of the Supper — commemorate 
the mysterious sacrifice of Christ, w 7 e cannot assert any claim to v 
salvation." Ib. pp. 189—90. 



vih PREFACE. 

«' In order to be effectual, to be acknowledged by God, and 
accompanied by his power, they (the sacraments) must be ad- 
ministered by those who have received a commission for the 
purpose from him." — " None can possess authority to adminis- 
ter the sacraments but those who have received a commission 
from the bishops of the church." — " Great is the guilt and im- 
minent the danger of those who negligently or wilfully continue 
in a state of separation from the authorised ministrations of the 
church, and participate of ordinances administered by an irregu- 
lar and invalid authority" — " wilfully rending the peace and unity 
of the church, by separating from the administration of its au- 
thorised priesthood ; obstinately contemning the means which 
God has prescribed for their salvation. They are guilty of re- 
bellion against the almighty Lawgiver and Judge ; they expose 
themselves to the awful displeasure of that almighty Jehovah, 
who will not suffer his institutions to be contemned, or his au- 
thority violated, with impunity." 16. pp. 198—200 : 203 — 4. 

This is all fair as a matter of trade. The rivalry for adher- 
ents constantly carried on among the various denominations of 
Christians, justifies every divine in endeavouring to draw as 
many gulls to his shop as possible ; and the end must sanctify 
the means. 

From this nonsense, advanced even by wise men, with a view 
of promoting their interests, it is pleasant to turn to the writings 
of philosophers who have not the same inducements. 

Thomas Jefferson speaks of religion as every man of common 
sense, not under the influence of early impressions before the 
mind is capable of distinguishing right from wrong, thinks ; and 
as every honourable man, who wishes to benefit his species, 
ought to express himself. 

The following sentiments are extracted from his correspond- 
ence with his old revolutionary colleague, John Adams, whose 
minds seem in perfect unison on the subject treated of ; both 
must be actuated by the purest motives of humanity, as no sinis- 
ter views could possibly be entertained at the late period in which 
the letters were written. 

" I remember to have heard Dr. Priestieysay, that if all Eng- 
land would candidly examine themselves, and confess, they would 
find that unitarianism was really the religion of all. It is too 
late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the 
Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three ; and 
yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one : to divide 
mankind by a single letter into homoousians and homoiousians* 
But this constitutes the craft, the power, and the profit of the 
priests. Sweep away their gossamer fabrics of factitious reli- 
-4 gion, and they would catch no more flies. We should all then, 
like the Quakers, live without an order of priests, moralize for 
ourselves, follow the oracle of conscience, and say nothing about 
what no man can understand nor therefore believe 5 for I sup- 



PREFACE. 



IX 



pose belief to be the assent of the mind to an intelligible propo- 
sition." Vol. iv. p. 205. 

" The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrine of Christ 
levelled to every understanding, and too plain to need explana- 
tion, saw in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they 
might build up an artificial system, which might, from its indis- 
tinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for 
their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and pre-eminence. 
The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are 
within the comprehension of a child ; but thousands of volumes 
have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them ; and 
for this obvious reason, that nonsense can never be explained. 
Their purposes, however, are answered. Plato is canonized ; 
and it is now deemed as impious to question his merits as those 
of an apostle of Jesus." Ib. p. 242. 

" The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the hap- 
piness of man. But compare with these the demoralizing dog- 
mas of Calvin. 

" 1. That there are three Gods. — 2. That good works, or the 
love of our neighbour, are nothing. — 3. That faith is every 
thing, and the more incomprehensible the proposition, the more 
merit in its faith. — 4. That reason in religion is of unlawful use. 
— 5. That God, from the beginning, elected certain individuals 
to be saved, and certain others to be damned.; and that no 
crimes of the former can damn them ; no virtues of the latter, 
save. 

" Now, which of these is the true and charitable Christian ; 
he who believes and acts on the simple doctrines of Jesus, or the 
impious dogmatists, as Athanasius and Calvin W Ib. p. 349. 

" The wishes expressed in your last favour, that I may con- 
tinue in life and health until I become a Calvinist, would make 
me immortal. I can never join Calvin in addressing his God. 
He was indeed an atheist, which I can never be ; or rather his 
religion was daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false God, 
he did. The being described in his five points, is not the God 
whom you and I acknowledge and adore, the creator and benevo- 
lent governor of the world ; but a daemon of malignant spirit. It 
would be more pardonable to believe in no God at all, than to 
blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin. Indeed, I 
think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to atheism by 
their general dogma, that, without a revelation, there would not 
be sufficient proof of the being of a God. Now, one-sixth of 
mankind only are supposed to be Christians : the other five- 
sixths then, who do not believe in the Jewish and Christian rev- 
elation, are without a knowledge of the existence of a God!" 
Ib. p. 363. 

" The result of your fifty or sixty years of religious reading in 
the four words, ' Be just and good,' is that in which all our in- 
quiries must end ; as the riddles of all the priesthoods end in four 



PREFACE. 



more, t Ubi panis^ibi deus.' " lb. p. 300. Where there is bread, 
there is God. That is, whatever religion is most conducive 
to the interests of the clergy, that they will preach. This is 
what the professors of every other kind of business do. If any 
community of people should prefer five wheels to a coach, and 
would give high prices for such, a coach-maker would act very 
unwisely to refuse to accommodate them. The clergy are, 
therefore, not so much to blame as the people who take their 
quack medicines and pay very dear for them. If praying be of 
any service, every one knows what he stands most in need of, 
and should therefore prefer his own petitions, instead of paying 
others for doing it. And as for moral instruction, there are cer- 
tainly books enough extant upon that subject, the cost of which 
is nothing in comparison to what is paid for oral sermons.. 

Let the people shake off the shackles with which, they are 
bound by the existing priestcraft, and profess a manly religion, 
founded upon moral virtue alone, divested of all creeds, as the 
sure and only foundation of happiness here and hereafter, and 
they would soon find teachers enough who would accommodate 
themselves to their wishes. In this case, useful, scientific in- 
struction would form a prominent part of the preacher's duty. 
How much more pleasant and satisfactory would such a course 
be, than in listening to the eternal repetition of stupid, unintelli- 
gible dogmas, < vhich can never be of the least possible advan- 
tage. 

The religious opinions of Jefferson, Franklin, John Adams, and 
a host of wise and good men in Europe and America, differ in no 
respect from those of Thomas Paine. Yet he has been singled 
out particularly as a mark for the priesthood to aim their most 
deadly shafts. This, no doubt, arose from fear that his writings 
would prove more destructive to the craft than those of other 
liberal writers, on account of the bold, plain common sense which 
distinguishes his compositions. 

Mr. Paine's natural goodness of heart seems to have rendered 
him sceptical in the prevailing religious dogmas, at an early pe- 
riod. He says, " from the time I was capable of conceiving an 
idea and acting upon it by reflection, I either doubted the truth 
of the Christian system, or thought it to be a strange affair ; I 
scarcely know which it was, but I well remember, when about 
.seven or eight years of age, hearing a sermon read upon the 
Redemption, by the death of the Son of God. After the sermon 
was ended, I revolted at the recollection of what I had heard ; it 
was to me a serious reflection, arising from the idea I had, that 
God was too good to do such an action, and also too almighty to 
be under the necessity of doing it. I believed in the same man- 
ner to this moment." 

Of Jesus Christ he speaks in the following terms : " The 
morality that he preached and practised was of the most benevo- 
lent kind ; according to his declarations, in the 25th chapter of 



PREFACE. 



Matthew, he makes salvation, or the future happiness of man, to 
depend entirely upon good works. Here is nothing about pre- 
destination, that lust which some men have for damning one an- 
other. Here is nothing about baptism, whether sprinkling or 
plunging, nor about any of those ceremonies for which the Chris- 
tian church has been fighting, persecuting and burning each other, 
ever since the Christian church began." 

In another part, he says, " My own opinion is, that those whose 
lives have been spent in doing good, and endeavouring to make 
their fellow mortals happy, for this is the only way in which we 
can serve God, will be happy hereafter : and that the very wicked 
will meet with some punishment. This is my opinion. It is 
consistent with my idea of God's justice, and with the reason 
that God has given me." 

Why should Mr. Paine be reprobated for these opinions, and 
the clergy, who proclaim the eternal damnation of their species* 
be approved of and applauded ? The reason is plain. The 
clergy " mould th^ minds of the people like wax in the hollow of 
their hands." They well know, if Paine's principles prevail, w 
their consequence and high salaries would be at an end. Hence 
the outcry against him and those who. adopt his opinions. King's, 
in the first instance, created a band of priests to tyrannize over 
the mental faculties of man, that they might the more readily 
enslave him ; and the American republic imbibed the malady 
through a predisposition to infection inherited from their ances- 
tors. The business of life is incorporated with priestcraft, and 
whoever takes an honorable part in vindication of truth, is sure to 
meet with abuse. The doctrine of let us alone, is the constant 
cry of priests, and the fear of censure from the pulpit creates 
and fosters the detestable crime of hypocrisy. 

The flatteries and respect shown to the clerical character, of 
all denominations, has induced some of the profession to adopt a 
language towards their opponents truly astonishing. In fact, 
many preachers of the Gospel of Christ, seem to consider them- 
selves licenced calumniators, and that they have a right, by vir- 
tue of their office, to abuse the whole human race, as enemies to 
God and all righteousness. 

A few years since, a young preacher of the Methodist connec- 
tion arrived in this country from England. He laid great claims 
to religious endowments, and, in consequence of his pertness 
and assurance, was highly caressed by the members of his church. 
Emboldened by the attentions he received, in order to show 
his zeal for the cause, he had the effrontery, at a tract society 
meeting, to express himself in the following terms : " I thank 
God, that the bones of Tom Paine have been rooted up, and no 
longer disgrace the soil of our country." No man at the meeting, 
or in the public prints since, dared to reprove him. As a man of 
God, he w^as deemed to bf privileged to stigmatize the memory 



xii 



PREFACE. 



of one who had so powerfully opposed the clerical scheme of 
eternal misery. 

The same spirit, which dictated the above declaration, is con- 
spicuous in an article that lately appeared in the New-York 
Herald, supposed to be written by an English clergyman of 
the Episcopal church. It is entitled, " The Lone Tomb ; a 
scene in Westchester county." The object of it was to eulo- 
gize the virtues of a young woman who died in New-Rochelle, 
at the age of nineteen. Thomas Paine, at the mention of whose 
name, the clergy were wont to quake, was also dead, and had 
been interred in the same village. What a glorious opportunity — ■ 
it was irresistible ; and the pious parson improved it to bespatter 
the tomb of the great advocate of human rights ; the vindicator 
of the justice and goodness of God ; the opponent of the plead- 
ers for Calvinistic fire and brimstone. And, strange as it may 
appear, he found an American printer who was enjoying, in com- 
mon with his countrymen, the fruits of Paine 's revolutionary ser- 
vices, indiscreet, or shall I say, base enough to lend his types in 
furtherance of the unholy purpose. 

The article concludes as follows : " Here is found the delight- 
ful village where the pious, but persecuted Huguenots, fleeing 
from oppressions of bigotry and intolerance, found a quiet and a 
happy home ; and where too is still pointed out the consecrated 
little enclosure, in which, when the toils and sufferings of this life 
were over, they rested from their labors. And here, alas ! that 
the place should be known but to be shunned, — here is yet seen 
the ruins of the sad and forsaken spot rendered infamous by the 
sepulchre of the infidel Paine. ! /" 

This consistent Christian writer, in persecuting the memory of 
Paine, commits the same outrage that he reprobates in others. — 
But, in the one case, it regarded pious Huguenots, Calvinists, 
who believed in hell-fire ; in the other an infidel, who was en- 
deavouring to wrest mankind from the clutches of the clergy, and 
to render them happy, here and hereafter, by the mere force of 
moral virtue. The difference, in the view of a minister of the 
gospel, must be enormous indeed. — But where were nine-tenths 
of these believing Huguenots, according to their own doctrine, 
after their toils and sufferings were over, to restl In hell, among 
glowing embers ! This is a true statement of the case, and I 
leave the reader to his own reflections. 

I will mention one more instance of clerical charity and for- 
bearance. A preacher in the Dutch church, corner of Cedar 
and Nassau streets, lately gave vent to the following rodomon- 
tade : — 

" A deist, he said, was no man — he unmans himself — he is 
an enemy to science — denies all history, and is a rebel to Al- 
mighty God!" The last clause of the sentence the speaker pro- 
nounce 1 with great energy, raising at the same time both hands 
to heaven. A gentleman, in company with the reporter, who 



PREFACE. 



xiit 



mistook declamation for argument, on leaving the church, observ- 
ed, that Mr. was a. most powerful preacher ; and probably 

this was the opinion of the bulk of the audience. It is, however, 
still a mooted case, which is the greatest rebel to God, the deist 
who represents him as benevolent, just and merciful ; or the Cal- 
vinistic divine who clothes him with attributes that would dis- 
grace a savage ? 

" The quality of mercy is not strain'd ; 
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath : it is twice blessed ; 
It blesseth him that gives, and him that tatas: 
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest." 

By the extracts I have made from the writings and speeches of 
clergymen, some might be inclined to think them in general a 
very wicked class of men ; but this is by n%. means the case. — 
They are like men in other pursuits of life, some good and some 
bad. The system is more in fault, than the professors. They 
are hired to teach a certain set of dogmas, which they cannot de- 
part from without bringing ruin upon themselves. Were a pres- 
byterian parson, for instance, to say to his congregation, that 
God was too benevolent and merciful to punish any of them to 
all eternity; that punishments would be graduated to crimes, and 
that if their lives were moral, they need be in no fear of incurring 
his displeasure on account of their opinions ; the consequence 
would be that every old lady imbued with orthodox principles r 
and who had an enemy, on earth, that she wished to be roasted 
forever, would immediately quit his church. Their daughters 
would take the same course, and the men would be compelled to 
follow suit. The parson, consequently, would be left without 
hearers, and without bread. Let us not, then, blame the clergy, 
but ourselves. Old bigoted schemes of religion must be broken 
down, and plain common sense substituted for them; and this 
must be done by laymen — it is not in the power of the clergy to 
effbet it. 

I will here introduce a few appropriate questions, propounded 
by the celebrated Voltaire. 

" Next to our holy religion, which would be the least excep- 
tionable ? Would it not be the most simple — that which taught 
a great deal of morality and few doctrines — that which tended to 
make men virtuous without making them fools — that which did 
not impose the belief of things impossible, contradictory, injuri- 
ous to the deity, and pernicious to mankind ;• and which did not 
take on itself to threaten, with eternal punishments, all who had 
common sense ? Would it not be that which did not support its 
articles by executioners, and deluge the world with blood, for un- 
intelligible sophisms I Would it not be that which taught only 
the adoration of one God, of justice, forbearance and humanity?" 

After all that Christian divines have said of the intensity and 
eternity of hell-fire, to which, according to them, the greater por- 



xiv 



PREFACE. 



tion of mankind are doomed, admitting even, for the sake of ar- 
gument, the authority of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, there 
is not a word in those books which designates the terrific piace 
represented by them. The Hebrew words Scheol and Hades 
whirh have been translated hell, mean nothing more, as every Jew 
can inform us, than the grave. The Gehinnom of the Old Tes- 
tament and the Gehenna of the New, also translated hell, mean 
the valley of Hinnom ; wherein the Israelites sacrificed their chil- 
dren to the god Moloch; and where a fire was continually burn- 
ing to consume the dead bodies of criminals to whom the rite of 
sepulchre was not granted, as well as the filth of Jerusalem. 

Moloch was a name given to a representation or emblem of the 
sun, which was itself only a symbol of the divinity, inherited by 
the Jews from the Egyptians. The fire in the Valley of Hin- 
nom, for the purposes before mentioned, was first established by 
king Josiah about one thousand years after the supposed death of 
Moses, and was not suffered to be extinguished. The insects 
which subsisted upon the garbage scattered about this valley were, 
of course* never extinct ; hence the exclamation, " Where the 
worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched /" 

Tartarus, once mentioned in the New Testament, is pre-emi- 
nently the hell of the ancient Greeks and Romans, but owes its 
origin to Egypt. The burying ground of Memphis, the ancient 
capital of Egypt, was on an island called Elyzout, decorated with 
beautiful groves and meadows ; to arrive at which it was necessary 
to pass a small lake, on whose margin three Judges were station- 
ed to examine into the characters of the defunct ; if they proved 
good, a passport was given by them to the ferry-man, called Cha- 
ron, to transmit the bodies, otherwise they were cast into a deep 
pit, denominated Tartarus; from whence is probably derived the 
expression bottomless pit, made use of in the Apocalypse. 

The Egyptians had an idea that the soul after death enjoyed or 
suffered with the body ; and, in this respect, the contrast between 
Elyzout and Tartarus must, in their eyes, have appeared infinite. 

From this custom of the Egyptians have arisen the fables of the 
Greeks and Romans of the pleasures enjoyed by those who had 
the good fortune to arrive at Elyzout, or Elysian fields, as they 
called it, and the various torments inflicted upon those doomed to 
Tartarus. 

But it is time for mankind to cease to believe in fables ; to 
cease to teach, or hear them taught, as sacred truths ; to study 
their real predicament in nature, and to regulate their lives ac- 
cordingly. 

EDITOR. 



THE 

AGE OF REASON. 



PART FIRST. 



TO MT 



FELLOW CITIZENS 

OF THE 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



I put the following work under your protection. It contains 
iny opinion upon Religion. You will do me the justice to re- 
member, that I have always strenuously supported the Right of 
every Man to his opinion, however different that opinion might 
be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave 
of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself 
the right of changing it. 

The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is 
Reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall. 

Your affectionate friend and fellow citizen, 

THOMAS PAINE* 

Luxembourg, (Paris,) Sth Pulviose, 
Second year of the French Republic, one and indivisible? 
January 27, O. & 1794. 

2 



THE 



AGE OF REASON. 

PART THE FIRST. 

BEING AN INVESTIGATION OF TRUE AND 
FABULOUS THEOLOGY. 

It has been my intention, for several years past, to publish my 
thoughts upon religion ; I am well aware of the difficulties that 
attend the subject, and, from that consideration, had reserved it to 
a more advanced period of life. I intended it to be the last offer- 
ing I should make to my fellow citizens of all nations, and that at 
a time when the purity of the motive that induced me to it, could 
not admit of a question, even by those who might disapprove the 
work. 

The circumstance that has now taken place in France of the 
total abolition of the whole national order of priesthood, and of 
every thing appertaining to compulsive systems of religion, and 
compulsive articles of faith, has not only precipitated my inten- 
tion, but rendered a work of this kind exceedingly necessary, lest, 
in the general wreck of superstition, of false systems of govern- 
ment, and false theology, we lose sight of morality, of humanity, 
and of the theology that is true. 

As several of my colleagues, and others of my fellow-citizens of 
France, have given me the example of making their voluntary and 
individual profession of faith, I also will make mine ; and I do this 
with all that sincerity and frankness with which the mind of man 
communicates with itself. 



12 THE AGE OF &EASOK. [PART U 

I believe in one God, and no more ; and I hope for happiness 
beyond this life. 

1 believe the equality of man ; and I believe that religious duties 
consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make 
our fellow creatures happy. 

But, lest it should be supposed that I believe many other things 
in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare 
the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing 
them. 

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by 
the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish churchy 
by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My 
own mind is my own church. 

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Chris- 
tian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, 
set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and 
profit. 

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe 
otherwise ; they have the same right to their belief as I have to 
mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be 
mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believ- 
ing, or in disbelieving ; it consists in professing to believe what 
he does not believe. 

It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief; if I may so 
express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a 
man has so*far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, 
as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not be- 
lieve, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other 
crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, 
and, in order to qualify himself for that trade, he begins with a 
perjury. Can we conceive any thing more destructive to morality 
than this ? 

Soon after I had published the pamphlet, * s Common Sense," 
in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in 
the system of government would be followed by a revolution in 
the system of religion. The adulterous connection of church 
and state, wherever it had taken place, whether Jewish, Christian, 
or Turkish, had so effectually prohibited, by pains and penalties, 
every discussion upon established creeds, and upon first princi- 
ples of religion, that until the system of government should be 



FART I.] "THE AGE OF REASON. 13 

changed, those subjects could not be brought fairly and openly 
before the world ; but that whenever this should be done, a revo- 
lution in the system of religion would follow. Human inven- 
tions and priest-craft would be detected ; and man would return to 
the pure, unmixed, and unadulterated belief of one God, and no 
more. 

Every national church or religion has established itself by pre- 
tending some special mission from God, communicated to certain 
individuals. The Jews have their Moses ; the Christians their 
Jesus Christ, their apostles, and saints ; and the Turks their Ma- 
homet, as if the way to God was not open to every man alike. 

Each of those churches show certain books, which they call reve- 
lation, or the word of God. The Jews say, that their word of God 
was given by God to Moses, face to face ; the Christians say, 
that their word of God came by divine inspiration ; and the Turks 
say, that their word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel 
from Heaven. Each of those churches accuse the other of un- 
belief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all. 

As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I 
proceed further into the subject, offer some other observations on 
the word revelation. P«,evelation when applied to religion, means 
something communicated immediately from God to man. 

No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make 
such a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake 
of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, 
and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person 
only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a 
third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those 
persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to 
every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it. 

It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call any thing a 
revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in 
writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communi- 
cation — after this, it is only an account of something which that 
person says was a revelation made to him ; and though he may 
find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me 
to believe it in the same manner ; for it was not a revelation made 
to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him. 

When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two 
tables of the commandments from the hands of God, they were 



14 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I. 

not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for 
it than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it 
than some historian telling me so. The commandments carry no 
internal evidence of divinity with them ; they contain some good 
moral precepts, such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver, or a 
legislator, could produce himself, without having recourse to 
supernatural intervention.* 

When I am told that the Koran was written in Heaven, and 
brought to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes too near the 
same kind of hearsay evidence and second-hand authority as the 
former. I did not see the angel myself* and, therefore, I have a 
right not to believe it. 

When also I am told that a woman called the Virgin Mary, 
said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation 
with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an 
angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not ; such a 
circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare 
word for it ; but we have not even this — for neither Joseph nor 
Mary wrote . any such matter themselves ; it is only reported by 
others that they said so — it is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not 
choose to rest my belief upon such evidence. 

It is, however, not difficult to account for the credit that was 
given to the story of Jesus Christ being the son of God. He * 
was born when the heathen mythology had still some fashion and 
repute in the world, and that mythology had prepared the people 
for the belief of such a story. Almost all the extraordinary men 
that lived under the heathen mythology were reputed to be the 
sons of some of their gods. It was not a new thing, at that time, 
to believe a man to have been celestially begotten ; the intercourse 
of gods with women was then a matter of familiar opinion. Their 
Jupiter, according to their accounts, had cohabited with hundreds; 
the story therefore had nothing in it either new, wonderful or ob- 
scene ; it was conformable to the opinions that then prevailed 
among the people called Gentiles, or Mythologists, and it was 
those people only that believed it. The Jews, who had kept 
strictly to the belief of one God, and no more, and who had 
always rejected the heathen mythology, never credited the story. 

* It is, however, necessary to except the declaration which says that God 
visits the sins of the fathers upon the children ; it is contrary to every principle 
of moral justice. 



PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 15 

It is curious to observe how the theory of what is called the 
Christian Church, sprung out of the tail of heathen mythology. 
A direct incorporation took place in the first instance, by making 
the reputed founder to be celestially begotten. The trinity of 
gods that then followed was no other than a reduction of the 
former plurality, which was about twenty or thirty thousand ; the 
statue of Mary succeeded the statue of Diana of Ephesus ; the 
deification of heroes changed into the canonization of saints ; the 
mycologists had gods for every thing ; the Christian Mycologists 
had saints for every thing ; the church became as crowded with 
the one, as the pantheon had been with the other ; and Rome was 
the place of both. The Christian theory is little else than the 
idolatry of the ancient Mythologists, accommodated to the pur- 
poses of power and revenue ; and it yet remains to reason and 
philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud. 

Nothing that is here said can apply, even with the most distant 
disrespect, to the real character of Jesus Christ. He was a vir- 
tuous and an amiable man. The morality that he preached and 
practised was of the most benevolent kind ; and though similar 
systems of morality had been preached by Confucius, and by some 
of the Greek philosophers, many years before ; by the Quakers 
since ; and by many good men in all ages, it has not been ex- 
ceeded by any. 

Jesus Christ wrote no account of himself, of his birth, parent- 
age, or any thing else ; not a line of what is called the New 
Testament is of his own writing. The history of him is alto- 
gether the work of other people ; and as to the account given ot 
his resurrection and ascension, it was the necessary counterpart 
to the story of his birth. His historians, having brought him 
into the world in a supernatural manner, were obliged to take him 
out again in the same manner, or the first part of the story must 
have fallen to the ground. 

The wretched contrivance with which this latter partis told, ex- 
ceeds every thing that went before it. The first part, that of the 
miraculous conception, was not a thing that admitted of publicity ; 
and therefore the tellers of this part of the story had this ad- 
vantage, that though they might not be credited, they could not 
be detected. They could not be expected to prove it, because 
it was not one of those things that admitted of proof, and it was 



16 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I 

impossible that the person of whom it was told could prove it 
himself. 

But the resurrection of a dead person from the grave, and his 
ascension through the air, is a thing very different as to the evi- • 
dence it admits of, to the invisible conception of a child in the 
womb. The resurrection and ascension, supposing them to have 
taken place, admitted of public and occular demonstration, like 
that of the ascension of a balloon, or the sun at noon day, to all 
Jerusalem at least. A thing which every body is required to 
believe, requires that the proof, and evidence of it should be equal 
to all, and universal ; and as the public visibility of this last 
related act, was the only evidence that could give sanction to the 
former part, the whole of it falls to the ground, because that evi- 
dence never was given. Instead of this, a small number of per- 
sons, not more than eight or nine, are introduced as proxies 
for the whole world, to say they saw it, and all the rest of the 
world are called upon to believe it. But it appears that Thomas 
did not believe the resurrection ; and, as they say, would not be- 
lieve without having occular and manual demonstration himself. 
So neither will ], and the reason is equally as good for me, and 
for every other person, as for Thomas, 

It is in vain to attempt to palliate or disguise this matter. The 
story, so far as relates to the supernatural part, has every mark of 
fraud and imposition stamped upon the face of it. Who were the 
authors of it is as impossible for us now to know, as it is for us 
to be assured, that the books in which the account is related, were 
written by the persons whose names they bear ; the best surviving 
evidence we now have respecting this affair is the Jews. They 
are regularly descended from the people who lived in the -time this 
resurrection and ascension is said to have happened, and they say, 
it is not true. It has long appeared to me a strange inconsistency 
to cite the Jews as a proof of the truth of the story. It is just the 
same as if a man were to say, I will prove the truth of what I have 
told you, by producing the people who say it is false. 

That such a person as Jesus Christ existed, and that he was 
crucified, which was the mode of execution at that day, are his- 
torical relations strictly within the limits of probability. He 
preached most excellent morality, and the equality of man ; but 
he preached also against the corruptions and avarice of the Jewi- 
jsh priests, and this brought upon him the hatred and vengeance of 



PART I.j THE AGE OF REASON. i7 

the whole order of priesthood. The accusation which those 
priests brought against him was that ot' sedition and conspiracy 
against the Roman government, to which the Jews were then 
sul ject and tributary ; and it is not improbable that the Roman 
government might have some secret apprehensions of the effects 
of hi- doctrine a> well a- the Jewish priests ; neither is it impro- 
bable that Jesus ( hrist had in contemplation the delivery ol f he 
Jewish nation from the bondage of the Romans. Between the 
two, however, this virtuous reformer and revolutionist lost his 
life. 

It is upon this plain narrative of facts, together with another 
case [ am going to mention, that the Christian Mycologists, 
calling themselves the Christian Church, have erected their 
fable, which for absurdity and extravagance, is not exceeded by 
any thing that is to be found in the mythology of the ancients. 

The ancient Mythologists tell us that the race of Giants made 
war against Jupiter, and that one of them threw a hundred rocks 
against him at one throw : that Jupiter defeated him with thunder, 
and confined him afterwards under Mount Ftna, and that every 
time the Giant turns himself^ Mount Etna belches fire. 

It is here easy to see that the cir< umstanee of the mountain, 
that of its being a volcano, suggested the idea of the fable: and 
that the table is made to fit and wind itself up with that circum- 
stance. 

The Christian Mythologists tell us, that their Satan made war 
against the Almighty, who defeated him, and confined him after- 
wards, not under a mountain, but in a pit. It is here easy to see 
that the first fable suggested the idea of the second ; for the fable 
of Jupiter and the Giants was told many hundred years before 
that of Satan. 

Thus far the ancient and the christian Mythologists differ very 
little from each other. Rut the latter have contrived to carry the 
matter much farther. They have contrived to connect the fabu- 
lous part of the story of Jesus Christ with the fable originating 
from Mount Etna ; and, in order to make all the paris of the story 
tie together, they have taken to their aid the traditions of the 
Jews; for the Christian mythology is made up partly from the' 
ancient mythology, and partly from the Jewish traditions. 

The Christian Mythologists, after having confined Satan in a 

pit, were obliged to let him out again to bring on the sequel of the 

3 



IS AGE OF REASON. [PART t* 

fable. He is then introduced into the Gat'den of Eden in the 
shape of a snake or a serpent, and in that shape he enters into 
familiar conversation with Eve, who is no way surprised to hear a 
snake talk ; and the issue of this tete-a-tete is, that he persuades 
her to eat an apple, and the eating of that apple damns all man- 
kind. 

After giving Satan this triumph over the whole creation, one 
would have supposed that the church Mythologists would have 
been kind enough to send him back to the pit : or, if they had not 
done this, that they woujd have put a mountain upon him, (for 
they say that their faith can remove a mountain) or have put him 
under a mountain, as the former Mythologists had done, to pre- 
vent his getting again among the women and doing more mischief. 
But instead of this, they leave him at large, without even obliging 
him to give his parole — the secret of which is, that they could not 
do without him ; and after being at the trouble of making hinv 
they bribed him to stay. They promised him all the Jews, all 
the Turks by anticipation, nine-tenths of the world beside, and 
Mahomet into the bargain. After this, who can doubt the boun- 
tifulness of the Christian mythology. 

Having thus made an insurrection and a battle in Heaven, in 
which none of the combatants could be either killed or wounded — - 
put Satan into the pit — let him out again — given him a triumph 
over the whole creation — -damned all mankind by the eating of an 
apple, these Christian Mythologists bring the two ends of their 
fable together. They represent this virtuous and amiable man, 
Jesus Christ, to be at once both God and Man, and also the Son 
of God, celestially begotten, on purpose to be sacrificed, because 
they say that Eve in her longing had eaten an apple. 

Putting aside every thing that might excite laughter by its ab- 
surdity, or detestation by its profaneness, and confining ourselves 
merely to an examination of the parts, it is impossible to conceive 
a story more derogatory to the Almighty, more inconsistent with 
his wisdom, more contradictory to his power, than this story is. 

In order to make for it a foundation to rise upon, the inventors 
were under the necessity of giving to the being, whom they call 
Satan, a power equally as great, if not greater than they attribute 
to the Almighty. They have not only given him the power of 
liberating himself from the pit, after what they call his fall, but 
they have made that power increase afterwards to infinity. Befora 



Part i.] the age of reason. 19 

this fall they represent him only as an angel of limited existence, 
as they represent the rest. After his fall, he becomes, by their 
account, omnipresent. He exists everywhere, and at the same 
time. He occupies the whole immensity of space. 

Not content with th dedication of Satan, they represent him 
as defeating, by stratagem, in the shape of an animal of the crea- 
tion, ail the power and wisdom of the Almighty. They represent 
him as having compelled the Almighty to the direct necessity cither 
of surrendering the whole of the creation to the government and 
sovereignty of this Satan, or of capitulating for its redemption by 
coming down upon eai th, and exhibiting himself upon a cross in 
the shape of a man. 

Had the inventors of this story told it the contrary way, that 
is, had they represented the Almighty as compelling Satan to ex- 
hibit himself on a cross, in the shape of a snake, as a punishment 
for his new transgression, the story would have been less absurd — 
less contradictory. But, instead of this, they make the transgressor 
triumph, and the Almighty fall. 

That many good men have believed this strange fable, and lived 
very good lives under that belief (for credulity is not a crime) is 
what I have no doubt of. In the first place, they were educated 
to believe it, and they would have believed any thing else in the 
same manner. There are also many who have been so enthusi- 
astically enraptured by what they conceived to be the infinite love 
of God to man, in making a sacrifice of himself, that the vehe- 
mence of the idea has forbidden and deterred them from examin- 
ing into the absurdity and profaneness of the story. The more 
unnatural any thing is, the more is it capable of becoming the ob- 
ject of dismal admiration. 

But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do 
they not present themselves every hour to our eyes ? Do we not 
see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born 
— a world furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing? Is it we 
that light up the sun, that pour down the rain, and fill the earth 
with abundance ? Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery 
of the universe still goes on. Are these things, and the blessings 
they indicate in future, nothing to us ? Can our gross feelings be 
excited by no other subjects than tragedy and suicide 1 Or is the 
gloomy pride of man become so intolerable, that nothing can 
flatter it but a sacrifice of the Creator ? 



2i THE AGE ©P REASON. ['PART I* 

I know that this bold investigation will alarm many, but it 
%vould be paying too great a compliment to their credulity to for- 
bear it upon that account ; the times and the subject demand it to 
be done. The suspicion that the theory of what is called the 
Christian church is fabulous, is becoming very extensive in all 
countries'; and it will be a consolation to men staggering under 
that suspicion, and doubting what to believe and what to disbe- 
lieve, to » e the subject freely investigated. I therefore pass on to 
an examination of the books called the Old and New Testament. 

These books, beginning with Genesis and ending with Revela- 
tion, (which, by the bye. is a book of riddles that requires a revela- 
tion to explain it) are, we are told, the word of God. It ife, there- 
fore, proper for us to know who told us so, that we may know 
what credit to give to the report. The answer to this question is, 
that nobody can tell, except that we tell one another so. The 
ease, however, historically appears to be as follows : — 

When the church Mycologists established their system, they 
collected all the writings they could find, and managed them as 
they pleased. It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us 
whether such of the writings as now appear under the name of the 
Old and New Testament, are in the same state in which those 
collectors say they found them, or whether they added, altered, 
abridged, or dressed them up. 

Be this as it may, they decided by vote which of the books out 
of the collection they had made, should be the word of god, and 
which should not. They rejected several ; they voted others to 
be doubtful, such as the books called the Apocrypha ; and those 
books which had a majority of votes, were voted to be the word 
of God. Had they voted otherwise, ail the people, since calling 
themselves Christians, had believed otherwise — for the belief of 
the one comes from the vote of the other. Who the people were 
that did all this, we know nothing of, they called themselves by 
the general name of the Church ; and this is all we know of the 
matter. 

As we have no other external evidence or authority for believ- 
ing those books to be the word of God, than what I have men- 
tioned, which is no evidence or authority at all, I come, in the next 
place, to examine the internal evidence contained in the books 
themselves. 



PART !.] THE AGE OP REASOX. &I 

In the former part of this Essay, I have spoken of revelation. — 
I now proceed further with that subject, for the purpose of applying 
it to the books in question. 

Revelation is a communication of something, which the person, 
to whom that filing is revealed, did not know before. For if I 
have done a tiling, or seen it done, it needs no revelation to 
tell me 1 have done it, or seen it, nor to enable me to tell it, or to 
write it. 

Revelation, therefore, cannot be applied to any thinu done upon 
earth, of which man is himself the actor or the witness ; and 
consequently all the historical and anecdotal part of the Bible, 
Which is almost the whole of it, is not within the meaning and 
compass of the word revelation, and, therefore, is not the word of 
God. 

When Sampson tan off with the gate-posts of Gaza, if he ever 
did so, (and whether he did or not is nothing to us,) or when he 
visited his Delilah, or caught his foxes, or did any thing rise, what 
has revelation to do with these things ? If they w< j re facts, he 
could tell them himself; or his secretary, if he kept one, could 
write them, if they were worth either telling or writing ; and if 
they were fictious, revelation could not make them true ; and 
whether true or not, we are neither the better nor the wiser for 
knowing them. When we contemplate the immensity of that 
Being, who directs and governs the incomprehensible whole, of 
which the utmost ken of human sight can discover but a part, 
we ought to feel shame at calling such paltry stories the word of 
God. 

As to the account of the Creation, with which the book of 
Genesis opens, it has all the appearance of being a tradition which 
the Israelites had among them before they came into Egypt ; and 
after their departure from that country, they put it at the head of 
then history, without telling (as it is most probable) that they did 
not know how they came by it. The manner in which the account 
opens, shows it to be traditionary. It begins abruptly : it is no- 
body that speaks ; it is nobody that hears ; it is addressed to no- 
body ; it has neither first, second, or third person ; it has every 
criterion of being a tradition, it has no voucher. Moses does not 
take it upon himself by introducing it with the formality that W 



-122 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART k 

uses on other occasions, such as that of saying, " The Lord spake 
uno JSIoses, saying." 

Why it has been called the Mosaic account of the Creation, I 
am at a loss to conceive. Moses, I believe, was too good a 
judge of such subjects to put his name to that account. He had 
been educated anions the Egyptians, who were a people as well 
skilled in science, and particularly in astronomy, as any people of 
tht-ir day ; and the silence and caution that Moses observes, in 
n<»t authenticating the account, is a good negative evidence that 
he neither told it nor believed it. — The case is, that every nation 
of people has been world-makers, and the Israelites had as much 
right to set up the trade of world-making as any of the rest ; and 
as Moses was not an Israelite, he might not choose to contradict 
the tradition. The account, however, is harmless ; and this is 
more than can be said of many other parts of the Bible. 

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous de- 
baucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting 
yindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it 
would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, 
than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has 
served to corrupt and brutalize mankind ; and, for my own part, I 
sincerely detest it, as I detest every thing that is cruel. 

We scarcely meet with any thing, a few phrases excepted, but 
what deserves either our abhorence or our contempt, till we come 
to the miscellaneous parts of the Bible. In the anonymous pub- 
lications, the Psalms, and the Book of Job, more particularly in 
the latter, we find a great deal of elevated sentiment reverentially 
expressed of the power and benignity of the Almighty ; but they 
stand on no higher rank than many other compositions on similar 
subjects, as well before that time as since. 

The Proverbs which are said to be Solomon's, though most 
probably a collection, (because they discover a knowledge of life, 
which his situation excluded him from knowing) are an instructive 
table of ethics. They are inferior in keenness to the proverbs of 
the Spaniards, and not more wise and economical than those of the 
American Franklin. 

All the remaining parts of the Bible, generally known by the 
name of the Prophets, are the works of the Jewish poets and 
itinerant preachers, who mixed poetry, anecdote, and devotion 



VAilT 1.1 THE AGE OP REASOxV. 123 

together — and those works still retain the air and style of poetry, 
though in translation.* 

There is not, throughout the whole book called the Bible, any 
word that describes to us what we call a poet, nor any word that 
describes what we call poetry. The case is, that the word pro- 
phet, to which latter times have affixed a new idea, was the Bible 
word for poet, and the word prophesying meant the art of making 
poetry. It also meant the art of playing poetry to a tune upon any 
instrument of music. 

We read of prophesying with pipes, tabrets, and horns — of 
prophesying with harps, with psalteries, with cymbals, and with 
every other instrument of music then in fashion. Were we now 
to speak of prophesying with a riddle, or with a pipe and tabor, the 
expression would have no meaning, or would appear ridiculous, 
and to some people contemptuous, because we have changed the 
meaning of the word. 

We are told of Saul being among the prophets, and also that he 
prophesied ; but we are not told what they prophesied, nor what he 
prophesied. The case is, there was nothing to tell ; for these 
prophets were a company of musicians and poets, and Saul joined 
in the concert, and this was called prophesying. 



* As there are many readers who do not see that a composition is poetry, 
unless it be in rhyme, it is for their information that I add this note. 

Poetry consists principally in two things — imagery and composition. The 
composition of poetry ditfers from that of prose in the manner of mixing; long 
and short syllables together. Take a long syllable out of a line of poetry, and 
put a short one in the room of it, or put a long syllable where a short one 
should be, and that line will lose its poetical harmony. It will have an effect 
upon the line like that of misplacing a note in a song. 

The imagery in those books, called the prophets, appertains altogether to 
poetry. It is fictitious, and often extravagant, and not admissible in any other 
kind of writing than poetry. 

To show that these writings are composed in poetical numbers, 5 will take 
ten syllables, as they stand in the book, and make a line of the same number 
of syllables (heroic measure) that shall rhyme with the last word. It will 
then be seen that the composition of those books is poetical measure. The 
instance I shall produce is from Isaiah : — 

"Hear,0 ye heaiiens, and give ear, earth!" 
'Tis God himself that calls attention forth. 

Another instance I shall quote is from the mournful Jeremiah, to which 5 
shall add two other lines, for the purpose of carrying out the figure, and 
showing the intention of the poet. 

" ! tkai mine head were waters and mine eyes" 
Were fountains flowing like the liquid skies : 
Then would I give the mighty flood release, 
And weep a deluge for the human race. 



24 THE AGE OF REASON, [PART I. 

The account given of this affair in the book called Samuel, is, 
that Saul met a company of prophets : a whole company of them! 
coining down with a psaltery, a tahret, a pipe, and a harp, and 
that they prophesied, and that he prophesied with them. But 
it appears afterwards, that Saul prophesied badly ; that is, per- 
formed his part badly ; for it is said, that, an " evil spirit from 
God"* came upon Sauj, and he prophesied. 

Now, wer e there no other passage in the book called the Bible, 
than this, to demonstrate to us that we have lost the original 
meaning of the word prophesy, and substituted another meaning in 
its place, this alone would be sufficient ; for it is impossible to 
use and apply the word prophesy, in the place it is here used and 
applied, if we give to it the sense which latter times have affixed 
to it. The manner in which it is here used strips it of all religious 
meaning, and shows that a man might then' be a prophet, or. he 
might prophesy, as he may now be a poet or musician, without 
any regard to the morality or immorality of his character. The 
word was originally a term of science, promiscuously applied to 
poetry and to music, and not restricted to any subject upon which 
poetry and music might be exercised. 

Deborah and Barak are called prophets, not because they pre- 
dicted any thing, but because they composed the poem or song 
that bears their name, in celebration of an act already done. 
David is ranked among the prophets, for he was a musician, and 
was also reputed to be (though perhaps very erroneously) the 
author of the Psalms. But Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not 
called prophets ; it does not appear from any accounts we have, 
that they could either, sing, play music, or make poetry. 

We are told of the greater and the lesser prophets. They might 
as well tell us of the greater and the lesser God ; for there cannot 
be degrees in prophesying consistently with its modern sense. — 
But there are degrees in poetry, and therefore the phrase is recon- 
cileable to the case, when we understand by it the greater and the 
lesser poets. 

It is altogether unnecessary, after this, to offer any observations 
upon what those men, styled prophets, have written. The axe 
goes at once to the root, by showing that the original meaning of 

* As those men who call themselves divines and commentators, are very 
fond of puzzling one another, I leave them to contest the meaning- of the first 
part of the phrase, that of an evil spirit of God. I keep to my text — I keep to 
the meaning of the word prophesy. 



PART I.J THE AGE OS" REASON. 25 

the word has been mistaken, and consequently all the inferences 
that have been drawn from those books, the devotional respect 
that has been paid to them, and the laboured commentaries that 
have been written upon them, under that mistaken meaning, are 
not worth disputing about. In many things, however, the vri- 
tings of the Jewish poets deserve a betl r tha that of being 
bound up, a: t ey iow are, with the trash that accompanies them, 
under the abused name of the word of God. 

If we permit ourselves to conceive right id^as of things, we 
must necessarily affi> the idea, not only of mchangeab'eness, but 
of the utter impossibi 1 ty of any change taki-.g place, by any 
means or accident whatever, in th it which we would honour with 
the name of the word of God ; and therefore the wjrd of God 
cannot exist in any written or human language. 

The continually progressive change to which the meaning of 
words is subject, the want of an universal language which renders 
translation necessary, the errors to which translations are again 
subject, the mistakes of copyists and printers, together with the 
possibility of wilful alteration, are of themselves evidences that 
the human language, whether in speech or in print, cannot be the 
vehicle of the word of God. The word of God exists in some- 
thing else. 

Did the book, called the Bible, excel in purity of ideas and 
expression all the books now extant in the world, I would not take 
it for my rule of faith, as being the word of God, because the 
possibility would nevertheless exist of my being imposed upon. 
But when I see throughout the greatest part of this book, scarcely 
any thing .but a history of the grossest vicesj and a collection of 
the most paltry and contemptible tales, I cannot dishonor my 
Creator by calling it by his name. 

Thus much for the Bible ; I now go on to the book called the 
New Testament. The Neiv Testament ! that is, the new will, 
as if there could be two wills of the (Creator. 

Had it been the object or the intention of Jesus Christ to estab- 
lish a new religion, he would undoubtedly have written the F-vstem 
himself, or procured it to be written in his life time. But there is 
no publication extant authenticated with his name. All the books 
called the New Testament were written after his death. Re was 
a. Jew by birth and by profession ; and he was the son of God in 



26 , THE A&E OF KEAS©2S> [>AKT U 

like manner that every other person is — -for the Creator is me 
Father of All. 

The first four books* called Mathew,- Mark, Luke, and John, do 
aot give a history of the life of Jesus Christy but only detached 
anecdotes of him. It appears from these books, that the whole 
time of hisbeing a preacher was not more than eighteen months ; 
and it was only during this short time, that those men became ac- 
quainted with him They make mention of him at the age of twelve 
years, sitting-, they sav, among the Jewish doctors, asking and 
answering them questions. As this was several years before their 
acquaintance with him began, it is most probable they had this 
anecdote from his parents. From this time there is no account 
©f him for about sixteen years. Where he lived, or how he em- 
ployed himself during this interval, is not known. Most probably 
he was working at his father's trade, which was that of a car- 
penter. It does not appear that he had any school education, and 
the probability is, that he could not write, for his parents were 
extremely poor, as appears from their not being able to pay for a 
bed when he was born. 

It is somewhat curious that the three persons whose names are 
the most universally recorded, were. of very obscure parentage. 
Moses was a foundling ; Jesus Christ was born in a stable ; and 
Mahomet was a mule driver. The first and the last of these men 
were founders of different systems of religion ; but Jesus Christ 
founded no new system. He called men to the practice of moral 
virtues, and the belief of one God. The great trait in his cha- 
racter is philanthropy. 

The manner in which he was apprehended, shows that he was 
not much known at that time ; and it shows also, that the meetings 
he then held with his followers were in secret ; and that he had 
given over or suspended preaching publicly. Judas could no other- 
wise betray him than by giving information where he was, and 
pointing him out to the officers that went to arrest him ; and the 
reason for employing and paying Judas to do this could arise only 
from the cause already mentioned, that of his not being much 
known, and living concealed. 

The idea of his concealment, not onlv agrees very ill with his 
reputed divinity, but associates with it something of pusillanimity ; 
and his being betrayed, or in other words, his being apprehended, 
en the information of one of his followers, shows that he did not 



jPART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 27 

intend to be apprehended, and consequently that he did not intend 
to be crucified. 

The Christian Mycologists tell us, that Christ died for the sins 
of the world, and that he came on purpose to die. Would it not 
then have been the same if he had died of a fever, or of the small 
pox, <>f old age, or of any thing else? 

The declaratory sentence whi h, they say, was passed upon 
Adam, in case he eat of the apple, was not, that thou shalt surely 
be crucified, but, ihou shalt surely die — the sentence of death, and 
not the manner of dying. Crucifixion, therefore, or^ any other 
particular manner of dying, made no part of the sentence that 
Adam was to suffer, and consequently, even upon their own tac- 
tics, it could make no part of the sentence that Christ was to 
suffer in the room of Adam. A fever would have done as well 
as a cross, if there was any occasion for either. 

The sentence of death, which they tell us, was thus passed upon 
Adam, must either have meant dying naturally, that is, ceasing to 
live, or have meant what these Mycologists call damnation ; and 
consequently, the act of dying on the part of Jesus Christ, must 
according to their system, apply as a prevention to one or other of 
these two things happening to Adam and to us. « 

That it does not prevent our dying is evident, because we all 
die ; and if their accounts of longevity be true, men die faster since 
the crucifixion than before ; and with respect to the second ex- 
planation, (including with it the natural death of Jesus Christ 
as a substitute for the eternal death or damnation of all mankind,) 
it is impertinently representing the Creator as corning off, or 
revoking the sentence, by a pun or a quibble upon the word death. 
That manufacturer* of quibbles, St. Paul, if he wrote the books 
that bear his name, has helped this quibble on by making another 
quibble upon the word Adam. He makes there to be two Adams ; 
the one who sins in fact, and suffers by proxy : the other who sins 
by proxy, and suffers in fact. A religion thus interlarded with 
quibble, subterfuge, and pun, has a tendency to instruct its pro- 
fessors in the practice of these arts. They acquire the habit 
without being aware of the cause. 

If Jesus Christ was the being which those Mycologists tell us 
he was, and that he came into this world to suffer, which is a word 
they sometimes use instead of to die, the only real suffering he 
could have endured, would have been to live. His existence here 



2S THE AGE OF REASON, [PART I, 

was a state of exilement or transportation from Heaven, and the 
way back to his original country was to die. — In fine, every thing 
in his strange system. is the reverse of what it pretends to be. It 
is the reverse of truth, and I become so t red of examining into its 
inconsistencies and absurdities,' that I hasten to the conclusion of 
it, in order to proceed to s mething bet er 

How much, or what parts oi the books called the New Testa-* 
ment, were written by the persons whose names they bea>, is what 
we can know nothing of, neither are we certain in what language 
they were originally written. The matters they no v contain may 
be classed under two heads — anecdote and epistolary correspon- 
dence. 

The four books already mentioned, Mat-hew, Mark, Luke, and 
John, are altogether anecdotal. They relat events after they had 
taken place. They tell what Jesus Christ did and sad, and what 
others did and said to him ; and in several instances they relate 
the same event differently. Revelation is necessarily out of the 
question with respect to those books ; not only because of the 
disagreement of the writers, but because revelation cannot be 
applied to the relating of facts by the persons who saw them done, 
i nor to the relating or recording of any discourse or conversation 
by those who heard it. The book called the Acts of the Apostles 
(an anonymous work) belongs also to the anecdotal part. 

All the other parts of the New Testament, except the book of 
enigmas, called the Revelations, are a collection of letters under 
the name of epistles ; and the forgery o ! letters has been such a 
common practice in the world, that the robabil ty is at least equal, 
whether they ire genuine or forged. One thing, however, is 
much less equivocal, which is, that out of the matters contained in 
those books, together With the assistance of some .old s lories, the 
church has set. u a system of religion very cont adictory to the 
character of the person whose name it bears. It has set up a 
religion of pomp and of revenue, in pretended imitation of a per- 
son whose life was humility and poverty. 

The invention of purgatory, and of the releasing of souls there- 
from, by prayers, bought oft church with money ; the selling of 
pardons, dispensation and ndulgencies, are revenue laws, with- 
out bearing that name or carrying that appearance. But the case 
nevertheless is, that those things derive their origin from the 
paroxysm of the crucifixion and the theory deduced therefrom, 



PART I.] ? HE AGE OP REASON. 29 

which was, that one person could stand in the place of another, 
and could perform meritorious services for him. The probability, 
therefore, is, that the whole theory or doctrine of what is culled 
the redemption (whhh is said to have been accomplished by the 
act of one person in the room of another) was originally fabricated 
On purpose to bring forward and build al! those secondary and 
pecuniary redemptions upon ; and that the passages in the books 
upon which the idea oi theory of redemption is built, have been 
manufactured and fabricated for that purpose. Why are we to 
give this church credit, when she tells us that those books are 
genuine in every part, any more than we give her credit for every 
thing else she has toid us ; or for the miracles she says she has 
performed I That she could fabricate writings is certain, because 
she could w rite ; and the composition of the writings in question, 
is of that kind that any body might do it ; and that she did 
fabricate them is not more inconsistent with probability, than 
that she should tell us, as she has done, that she could and did 
work miracles. 

Since, then, no external evidence can, at this long distance of 
time, be produced to prove whether the cburcl fabricated the doc- 
trines called redemption or not, (for such evidence, whether for or 
against, would be subject to the same suspicion of being fabrica- 
ted,) the case can only be eferred to the internal evidence which 
the thing carries within nsei:'; and this affords a very strong pre- 
sumption of its bei ig a fabrication. For the internal evidence is, 
that the theory or doctrine of redemption has for its basis an idea 
of pecuniar, ustice, and not that of moral justice. 

If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens 
to put me in prison, another person can take the debt upon him- 
self, and pay it for me ; but if I have committed a crime, every 
circumstance of the case is changed ; moral justice cannot take 
the innocent for the guilty, even if the innocent would offer itself. 
To suppose ustice to do this, is to destroy the principle of its 
existence, which is the thing itself ; it is then no longer justice ; it 
is indiscriminate revenge. 

This single reflection will show 7 that the doctrine of redemption 
is founded on a mere pecuniary idea, corresponding to that of a 
debt, which another person might pay ; and as this pecuniary idea 
corresponds again with the system of. second redemptions, ob- 
tained through the means of money given to the church for 



HQ THE AGE OF REASON. [PART 

pardons, the probability is, that the same persons fabricated both 
one and the other of those theories ; and that, in truth, there is no 
such thing as redemption ; that it is fabulous, and that man stands 
in the same relative condition with his Maker he ever did stand, 
since man existed, and that it is his greatest consolation to think 
So. 

. Let him believe this, and he will live more consistently and 
morally, than by any other system ; it is by his being taught to 
contemplate himself as an out-law, as an out-cast, as a beggar, as 
a mumper, as one thrown, as it were, on a dunghill, at an immense 
distance from his Creator, and who must make his approaches by 
creeping and cringing to n'^rmediate beings, that he conceives 
either a contemptuous disregard for every thing under the name 
of religion, or becomes indifferent, or turns, what he calls, devout. 
In the latter case, he consumes his life in grief, or the affectation 
of it; his prayers are reproaches; his humility is ingratitude ; 
he calls himself a worm, and the fertile earth a dunghill ; and 
all the blessings of life, by the thankless name of vanities ; he 
despises the choicest gift of God to man, the gift of reason ; 
and having endeavoured to force upon himself the belief of a 
system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it 
human reason, as if man could give reason to himself. 

Yet, with all this strange appearance of humility, and this con- 
tempt for human reason, he ventures into the boldest presump- 
tions; he finds fault with every thing ; his selfishness is never 
satisfied ; his ingratitude is never a| an end. He takes on him- 
self to direct the Almighty what to do, even in the government 
of the universe ; he prays dictatorial^ ; when it is sun-shine, he 
prays for rain, and when it is rain, he prays for sun-shine ; he 
follows the same idea m every thing that he prays for ; for what 
is the amount o' all his prayers, but an attempt to make the 
Almighty change his mind, and act otherwise than he does? It is 
as if he were to say — thou kno st not so well as I. 

But some perhaps will say — Are we to have no word of God 
— no revelation ! I answer, Yes : there is a word of God ; there 
is a revelation. 

The word of God is thr creation we behold : And it is 
in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter., 
that God speaketh universally to man. 



«PAfc? I. j THE AGE OP REASON. 31 

Human language is local and changeable, and is therefore inca- 
pable of being used as the means of unchangeable and universal 
information. The idea that God sent Jesus Christ to publish, as 
they say, the glad tidings to all nations, from one end of the earth 
to the other, is consistent only with the ignorance of those who 
knew nothing of the extent of the world, and who believed, as 
those world-saviours believed, and continued to believe, for seve- 
ral centuries, (and that in contradiction to the discoveries of phi- 
losophers and the experience of navigators,) that the earth was flat 
like a trencher; and that a man might walk to the end of it. 

But how was Jesus Christ to make any thing known to all na- 
tions? He could speak but one language, which was Hebrew; 
and there are in the world several hundred languages. Scarcely 
any two nations speak the same language, or understand each 
other ; and as to translations, every man who knows any thing of 
languages, knows that it was impossible to translate from one lan- 
guage to another, not only without losing a great part of the ori- 
ginal, but frequently of mistaking the sense ; and besides all this, 
the art of printing was wholly unknown at the time Christ lived. 

It is alwavs necessary that the means that are to accomplish any 
end, be equal to the accomplishment of that end, or the end can- 
not be accomplished. It is in this, that the difference between 
finite and infinite power and wisdom discovers itself. Man fre- 
quently fails in accomplishing his ends, from a natural inability of 
the power to the purpose ; and frequently from the want of wis- 
dom to apply power properly. But it is impossible for infinite 
power and wisdom to fail as man faileth. The means it useth are 
always equal to the end ; but human language, more especially as 
there is not an universal language, is incapable of being used 
as an universal means of unchangeable and uniform information, 
and therefore it is not the means that God useth in manifesting 
himself universally to man. 

It is only in the creation that all our ideas and conceptions of 
a word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal 
language, independently of human speech or human language, 
multiplied and various as they be. It is an ever-existing original, 
which every man Can read. It cannot be forged ; it cannot be 
counterfeited ; it cannot be lost ; it cannot be altered ; it cannot 
be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whethey 
ifc shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of (lie 



&2 'i'KE AGE QJ? REASON. [PAUT I< 

earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds 5 

and this word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man 
to know of God. 

Do we want to contemplate his power ? We see it in the im- 
mensity of the Creation. Do we want to contemplate his wis- 
dom ? We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incom- 
prehensible whole is governed. Do we want to contemplate his 
munificence ( We see it in the abundance with which he fills the 
earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy 1 We see it in his 
not withholding that abundance even from the unthankful. In 
fine, do we want to know what God is 1 Search not the book 
called the Scripture, which any human hand might make, but the 
Scripture called the Creation. 

The only idea man can affix to the name of God, is that of a 
first cause, the cause of all things. And, incomprehensible and 
difficult as it is for a man to conceive what a first cause is, he ar- 
rives at the belief of it, from the tenfold greater difficulty of disbe- 
lieving it. It is difficult beyond description to conceive that space 
can have no end ; but it is more difficult to conceive an end. It 
is difficult beyond the power of man to conceive an eternal dura- 
tion of what we call time ; but it is more impossible to conceive 
a time when there shall be no time. 

In like manner of reasoning, every thing we behold carries in 
itself the internal evidence that it did not make itself. Every 
man is an evidence to himself, that he did not make himself; 
neither could his father make himself, nor his grandfather, nor any 
of his race; neither could any tree, plant, or animal make itself ; 
and it is the conviction arising from this evidence, that carries us 
on, as it were, by necessity, to the belief of a first cause eternally 
existing, of a nature totally different to any material existence we 
know of, and by the power of which all things exist ; and this first 
cause man calls God. 

It is only by the exercise of reason, that man can discover 
God. Take away that reason, and he would be incapable of 
understanding any thing ; and, in this case it would be just as 
consistent to read even the book called the Bible to a horse as to 
a man. How then is it that those people pretend to reject 
reason 1 

Almost the only parts in the book called the Bible, that convey 
to ns any idea of God, are some chapters in Job* and the 19th 



PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 33 

Psalm ; I recollect no other. Those parts are true deisiical com- 
positions ; for they treat of the Deity through his works. They 
take the book of Creation as the word of God, they refer to no 
other book, and all the inferences they make are drawn from that 
volume. 

I insert, in this place, the 19th Psalm, as paraphrased into Eng- 
lish verse by Addison. I recollect not the prose, and where I 
write this I have not the opportunity of seeing it. 

The spacious firmament on high, 

With all the blue etherial sky, 

And spangled heavens, a shining frame, 

Their great original proclaim. 

The unwearied sun, from day to day, 

Does his Creator's power d isplay ; 

And publishes to every land, 

The work of an Almighty hand. 

Soon as the evening shades prevail, 

The moon takes up the wondrous tale, 

And nightly to the listning earth, 

Repeats the story of her birth ; 

Whilst all the stars that round her burn, 

And all the planets, in their turn, 

Confirm the tidings as they roll, 

And spread the truth from pole to pole. 

What though in solemn silence all 

Move round this dark terrestrial ball ; 

What though no real voice, nor sound, 

Amidst their radient orbs be found, 

In reason's ear they all rejoice, 

And utter forth a glorious voice, 

For ever singing as they shine, 

The hand that made us is divine. 

What more does man want to know, than that the hand or 
power, that made these things is divine, is omnipotent 1 Let him 
believe this with the force it is impossible to repel, if he permits 
his reason to act, and his rule of moral life will follow of course. 

The allusions in Job have all of them the same tendency with 
this Psalm ; that of deducing or proving a truth that would be 
otherwise unknown, from truths already known. 

I recollect not enough of the passages in Job, to insert them 
correctly : but there is one occurs to me that is applicable to the 
subject I am speaking upon. " Canst thou by searching find out 
God ? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection ?" 



S4 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART U 

I know not how the printers have pointed this passage, for I 
keep no Bible ; but it contains two distinct questions, that admit 
of distinct answers. 

First — Canst thou by searching find out God 1 Yes ; because 
in the first place, I know I did not make myself, and yet I have 
existence ; and by searching into the nature ,of other things, I 
find that no other thing could make itself ; and yet millions of 
other things exist ; therefore it is, that I know? by positive con- 
clusion resulting from this search, that there is a power superior 
to all those things, and that power is God. 

Secondly — Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection ? 
No ; not only because the power and wisdom He has manifested 
in the structure of the Creation that I behold is to me incompre- 
hensible, but because even this manifestation, great as it is, is 
probably but a small display of that immensity of power and wis- 
dom, by which millions of other worlds, to me invisible by their 
distance, were created and continue to exist. 

It is evident that both of these questions are put to the reason 
of the person to whom they are supposed to have been addressed ; 
and it is only by admitting the first question to be answered 
affirmatively, that the second could follow. It would have been 
unnecessary, and even absurd, to have put a second question, 
more difficult than the first, if the first question had been answered 
negatively. The two questions have different objects ; the first 
refers to the existence of God, the second to his attributes ; 
reason can discover the one, but it falls infinitely short in dis- 
covering the whole of the other. 

I recollect not a single passage in all the writings ascribed to 
the men called apostles, that convey any idea of what God is. 
Those writings are chiefly controversial ; and the subject they 
dwell upon, that of a man dying in agony on a cross, is better 
suited to the gloomy genius of a monk in a cell, by whom it is not 
impossible they were written, than to any man breathing the open 
air of the Creation. The only passage that occurs to me, that has 
any reference to the works of God, by which only his power and 
wisdom can be known, is related to have been spoken by Jesus 
Christ, as a remedy against distrustful care. *' Behold the lilies 
of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin." This, however, 
is far inferior to the allusions in Job, and in the 19th Psalm ; but 



PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON, 35 

it is similar in idea, and the modesty of the imagery is correspon- 
dent to the modesty of the man. 

As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species 
of atheism — a sort of religious denial of God. It professes to be- 
lieve in a man rather than in God. It is a compound made up 
chiefly of manism with but little deism, and is as near to atheism 
as twilight is to darkness. It introduces between man and his 
Maker an opaque body, which it calls a Redeemer, as the moon 
introduces her opaque self between the earth and the sun, and it 
produces by this means a religious or an irreligious eclipse of light. 
It has put the whole orbit of reason into shade. 

The effect of this obscurity has been that of turning every thing 
upside down, and representing it in reverse ; and among the re- 
volutions it has thus magically produced, it has made a revolution 
in Theology. 

That which is now called natural philosophy, embracing the 
whole circle of science, of which Astronomy occupies the chief 
place, is the study of the works of God, and of the power and wis- 
dom of God in his works, and is the true theology. 

As to the theology that is now studied in its place, it is the 
study of human opinions, and of human fancies concerning God. 
It is not the study of God himself in the works that he has made, 
but in the works or writings that man has made ; and it is not 
among the least of the mischiefs that the Christian system has 
done to the world, that it has abandoned the original and beautiful 
system of theology, like a beautiful innocent, to distress and re- 
proach, to make room for the hag of superstition. 

The book of Job, and the 19th Psalm, which even the church 
admits to be more ancient than the chronological order in which 
they stand in the book called the Bible, are theological orations 
conformable to the original system of theology. The internal 
evidence of those orations proves to a demonstration that the 
study and contemplation of the works of Creation, and of the 
power and wisdom of God, revealed and manifested in those 
works, made a great part of the religious devotion of the times in 
which they were written ; and it was this devotional study and 
contemplation that led to the discovery of the principles upon 
which, what are now called Sciences, are established ; and it is to 
the discovery of these principles that almost all the Arts that con- 
tribute to the convenience of human life, owe their existence. 



36 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I. 

Every principal art has some science for its parent, though the 
person who mechanically performs the work does not always, and 
but very seldom, perceive the connexion. 

It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences human 
invention ; it is only the application of them that is human. Every 
science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unal- 
terable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed* 
Man cannot make principles, he can only discover them. 

For example — Every person who looks at an Almanack sees an 
account when an eclipse will take place, and he sees also that it 
never fails to take place according to the account there given* 
This shows that man is acquainted with the laws by which the 
heavenly bodies move. But it would be something worse than 
ignorance, were any church on earth to say, that those laws are a 
human invention. It would also be ignorance, or something 
worse, to say that the scientific principles, by the aid of which 
man is enabled to calculate and foreknow when an eclipse will 
take place, are a human invention. Man cannot invent and 
thing that is eternal and immutable ; and the scientific principles 
he employs for this purpose must, and are, of necessity, as eternal 
and immutable as the laws by which the heavenly bodies move, or 
they could not be used as they are to ascertain the time when, and 
the manner how, an eclipse will take place. 

The scientific principles that man employs to obtain the fore- 
knowledge of an eclipse, or of any thing else, relating to the mo- 
tion of the heavenly bodies, are contained chiefly in that part of sci- 
ence which is called Trigonometry, or the properties of a triangle, 
which when applied to the study of the heavenly bodies, is called 
Astronomy ; when applied to direct the course of a ship on the 
ocean, it is called Navigation ; when applied to the construction 
of figures drawn by rule and compass, it is called Geometry ; when 
applied to the construction of plans of edifices, it is called Archi- 
tecture ; when applied to the measurement of any portion of the 
surface of the earth, it is called Land-surveying. In fine, it is 
the soul of science ; it is an eternal truth ; it contains the mathe- 
matical demonstration of which man speaks, and the extent of its 
uses is unknown. 

It may be said, that man can make or draw a triangle, and there- 
fore a triangle is an human invention. 



PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 37 

But the triangle, when drawn, is no other than the image of the 
principle ; it is a delineation to the eye, and from thence to the 
mind, of a principle that would otherwise be imperceptible. The 
triangle does not make the principle, any more than a candle 
taken into a room that was dark, makes the chairs and tables that 
before were invisible. All the properties of a triangle exist inde- 
pendently of the figure, and existed before any triangle was drawn 
or thought of by man. Man had no more to do in the formation 
of those properties or principles, than he had to do in making the 
laws by which the heavenly bodies move ; and therefore the one 
must have the same divine origin as the other. 

In the same manner as it may be said, that man can make a 
triangle, so also may it be said, he can make the mechanical in- 
strument called a lever; but the principle, by which the lever acts, 
is a thing distinct from the instrument, and would exist if the in- 
strument did not : it attaches itself to the instrument after it is 
made ; the instrument, therefore, can act no otherwise than it 
does act ; neither can all the efforts of human invention make it 
act otherwise — that which, in all such cases, man calls the effect, 
is no other than the principle itself rendered perceptible to the 
senses. 

Since then man cannot make principles, from whence did he 
gain a knowledge of them, so as to be able to apply them, not 
only to things on earth, but to ascertain the motion of bodies so 
immensely distant from him as all the heavenly bodies are? 
From whence, I ask, could he gain that knowledge, but from the 
study of the true theology ? 

It is the structure of the universe that has taught this know- 
ledge to man. That structure is an ever-existing exhibition of 
every principle upon which every part of mathematical science is 
founded. The offspring of this science is mechanics ; for me- 
chanics is no other than the principles of science applied practi- 
cally. The man who proportions the several parts of a mill, uses 
the same scientific principles, as if he had the power of construct- 
ing an universe ; but as he cannot give to matter that invisible 
agency, by which all the components parts of the immense ma- 
chine of the universe have influenced upon each other and act in 
motional unison together., without any apparent contact, and to 
which man has given the name of attraction, gravitation, and re- 
pulsion, he supplies the place of that agency by the humble imi- 



38 THE AGE OF REASON* [PART I. 

tation of teeth and cogs.— All the parts of man's microcosm must 
visibly touch : but could he gain a knowledge of that agency, so 
as to be able to apply it in practice, we might then say, that ano- 
ther canonical hook of the word of God had been discovered* 

If man could alter the properties of the lever, so also could he 
alter the properties of the triangle : for a lever (taking that sort of 
lever which is called a steel-yard, for the sake of explanation) 
forms, when in motion, a triangle. The line it descends from, 
(one point of that line being in the fulcrum,) the line it descends 
to, and the cord of the arc, which the end of the lever describes 
in the air, are the three sides of a triangle. The other arm of the 
lever describes also a triangle ; and the corresponding sides of 
those two triangles, calculated scientifically, or measured geome- 
trically : and also the sines,, tangents, and secants generated from 
the angles, and geometrically measured, have the same proportions 
to each other, as the different weights have that will balance each 
other on the lever, leaving the weight of the lever out of the case. 

It may also be said, that man can make a wheel and axis ; 
that he can put wheels of different magnitudes together, and pro- 
duce a mill. Still the case comes back to the same point, which 
is, that he did not make the principle that gives the wheels those 
powers. That principle is as unalterable as in the former case, 
or rather it is the same principle under a different appearance to 
the eye. 

The power that two wheels, of different magnitudes, have upon 
each other, is in the same proportion as if the semi-diameter of the 
two wheels were joined together and made into that kind of lever 
I have described, suspended at the part where the semi-diameters 
join ; for the two wheels, scientifically considered, are no other 
than the two circles generated by the motion of the compound 
lever. 

It is from the study of the true theology that all our knowledge 
of science is derived, and it is from that knowledge that all the 
arts have originated. 

The Almighty lecturer, by displaying the principles of science 
in the structure of the universe, has invited man to study and to 
imitation. It is as if he had said to the inhabitants of this globe, 
that we call ours, " I have made an earth for man to dwell upon, 
and I have rendered the starry heavens visible, to teach him 
science and the arts. He can now provide for his own comfort 



PART I.] 



THE AGE OF REASON. 



39 



AND LEARN FROM MY MUNIFC1ENCE TO ALL, TO BE KIND TO 
EACH OTHER." 

Of what use is it, unless it be to teach man something, that his 
eye is endowed with the power of beholding, to an incomprehen- 
sible distance, an immensity of worlds revolving in the ocean of 
space 1 Or of what use is it that this immensity of worlds is visi- 
ble to man ? What has man to do with the Pleiades, with Orion, 
with Sirius, with the star he calls the north star, with the moving 
orbs he has named Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury, 
if no uses are to follow from their being visible 1 A less power 
of vision would have been sufficient for man, if the immensity he 
now possesses were given only to waste itself, as it were, on an 
immense desert of space glittering with shows. 

It is only by contemplating what he calls the starry heavens, as 
the book and school of science, that he discovers any use in their 
being visible to him, or any advantage resulting from his immen- 
sity of vision. But when he contemplates the subject in this 
light, he sees an additional motive for saying, that nothing was 
made in vain ; for in vain would be this power of vision if it 
taught man nothing. 

As the Christian system of faith has made a revolution in theo- 
logy, so also has it made a revolution in the state of learning. 
That which is now called learning, was not learning, originally. 
Learning does not consist, as the schools now make it consist, in 
the knowledge of languages, but in the knowledge of things to 
which language gives names. 

The Greeks were a learned people, but learning with them did 
not consist in speaking Greek, any more than in a Roman's speak- 
ing Latin, or a Frenchman's speaking French, or an Englishman's 
speaking English. From what we know of the Greeks, it does 
not appear that they knew or studied any language but their own, 
and this was one cause of their becoming so learned ; it afforded 
them more time to apply themselves to better studies. The 
schools of the Greeks were schools of science and philosophy, 
and not of languages ; and it is in the knowledge of the things 
that science and philosophy teach, that learning consists. 

Almost all the scientific learning that now exists, came to us 
from the Greeks, or the people who spoke the Greek language. — ■ 
It, therefore, became necessary for the people of other nations, 
who spoke a different language, that some among them should 



40 THE AGE OP REASON. [PART U 

learn the Greek language, in order that the learning the Greeks 
had, might be made known in those nations, by translating the 
Greek books of science and philosophy into the mother tongue of 
each nation. 

The study, therefore, of the Greek language (and in the same 
manner for the Latin) was no other than the drudgery business of a 
linguist ; and the language thus obtained, was no other than the 
means, as it were the tools, employed to obtain the learning the 
Greeks had. It made no part of the learning itself; and was so 
distinct from it, as to make it exceedingly probable that the per- 
sons who had studied Greek sufficiently to translate those works, 
such, for instance, as Euclid's Elements, did not understand 
any of the learning the works contained. 

As there is now nothing new to be learned from the dead lan- 
guages, all the useful books being already translated, the lan- 
guages are become useless, and the time expended in teaching 
and learning them is wasted. So far as the study of languages 
may contribute to the progress and communication of knowledge* 
(for it has nothing to do with the creation of knowledge,) it is only 
in the living languages that new knowledge is to be found ; and 
certain it is, that, in general, a youth will learn more of a living 
language in one year, than of a dead language in seven ; and it is 
but seldom that the teacher knows much of it himself. The diffi- 
culty of learning the dead languages does not arise from any supe- 
rior abstruseness in the languages themselves, but in their being 
dead, and the pronunciation entirely lost. It would be the same 
thing with any other language when it becomes dead. The best 
Greek linguist that now exists, does not understand Greek so well 
as a Grecian ploughman did, or a Grecian milkmaid : and the 
same for the Latin, compared with a ploughman or milkmaid of 
the Romans ; it would therefore be advantageous to the state of 
learning to abolish the study of the dead languages, and to make 
learning consist, as it originally did, in scientific knowledge. 

The apology that is sometimes made for continuing to teach 
the dead languages is, that they are taught at a time, when a child 
is not capable of exerting any other mental faculty than that of 
memory; but that is altogether erroneous. The human mind 
has a natural disposition to scientific knowledge, and to the things 
connected with it. The first and favourite amusement of a child, 
even before it begins to play, is that of imitating the works of maa, 



TART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 41 

It builds houses with cards or sticks ; it navigates the little ocean 
of a bowl of water with a paper boat, or dams the stream of a 
gutter, and contrives something which it calls a mill ; and it in- 
terests itself in the fate of its works with a care that resembles 
affection. It afterwards goes to school, where its genius is killed 
by the barren study of a dead language, and the philosopher is lost 
in the linguist. 

But the apology that is now made for continuing to teach the 
dead languages, could not be the cause, at first, of cutting down 
learning to the narrow and humble sphere of linguistry ; the cause, 
therefore, must be sought for elsewhere. In all researches oi 
this kind, the best evidence that can be produced, is the internal 
evidence the thing carries with itself, and the evidence of cir- 
cumstances that unites with it ; both of which, in this case, are 
not difficult to be discovered. 

Putting then aside, as a matter of distinct consideration, the 
outrage offered to the moral justice of God, by supposing him to 
make the innocent suffer for the guilty, and also the loose mo- 
rality and low contrivance of supposing him to change himself into 
the shape of a man, in order to make an excuse to himself for not 
executing his supposed sentence upon Adam ; putting, I say, 
those things aside as matter of distinct consideration, it is certain 
that what is called the Christian system of faith, including in it the 
whimsical account of the creation — the strange story of Eve — the 
snake and the apple — the ambiguous idea of a man-god — the cor- 
poreal idea of the death of a god — the mythological idea of a 
family of gods, and the Christian system of arithmetic, that three 
are one, and one is three, are all irreconcilable, not only to the 
divine gift of reason, that God hath given to Man, but to the 
knowledge that man gains of the power and wisdom of God, by 
the aid of the sciences, and by studying the structure of the uni- 
verse that God has made. 

The setters-up, therefore, and the advocates of the Christian 
system of faith, could not but foresee that the continually progres- 
sive knowledge that man would gain, by the aid of science, of the 
power and wisdom of God, manifested in the structure of the uni- 
verse, and in all the works of Creation, would militate against, 
and call into question, the truth of their system of faith ; and 
therefore it became necessary to their purpose to cut learning 
down to a size less dangerous to their project, and this they 

6 



42 THE AGE OF REASON [PART I. 

effected by restricting the idea of learning to the dead study of 
dead languages. 

They not only rejected the study of science out of the Christian 
schools, but they persecuted it ; and it is only within about the 
last two centuries that the study has been revived. So late as 
1610, Galileo, a Florentine, discovered and introduced the use 
of telescopes, and by applying them to observe the motions and 
appearance of the heavenly bodies, afforded additional means for 
ascertaining the true structure of the universe. Instead of being 
esteemed for those discoveries, he was sentenced to renounce 
them, or the opinions resulting from them, as a damnable heresy. 
And, prior to that time, Vigilius was condemned to be burned for 
asserting the antipodes, or in other words, that the earth was a 
globe, and habitable in every part where there was land ; yet the 
truth of this is now too well known even to be told. 

If the belief of errors not morally bad did no mischief, it would 
make no part of the moral duty of man to oppose and remove 
them. There was no moral ill in believing the earth was flat 
like a trencher, any more than there was moral virtue in 
believing that it was round like a globe ; neither was there any 
moral ill in believing that the Creator made no other world than 
this, any more than there was moral virtue in believing that he made 
millions, and that the infinity of space is filled with worlds. But 
when a system of religion is made to grow out of a supposed 
system of creation that is not true, and to unite itself therewith in 
a manner almost inseparable therefrom, the case assumes an en- 
tirely different ground. It is then that errors, not morally bad, 
become fraught with the same mischiefs as if they were. It is 
then that the truth, though otherwise indifferent itself, becomes 
an essential, by becoming the criterion, that either confirms by 
corresponding evidence, or denies by contradictory evidence, the 
reality of the religion itself. In this view of the case, it is the 
moral duty of man to obtain every possible evidence that the 
structure of the heavens, or any other part of creation affords, 
with respect to systems of religion. But this, the supporters or 
partizans of the Christian system, as if dreading the result, inces- 
santly opposed, and not only rejected the sciences, but persecuted 
the professors. Had Newton or Descartes lived three or four 
hundred years ago, and pursued their studies as they did, it is 
most probable they would not have lived to finish them ; and had 



PART I.] 



THE AGE OF REASON. 



43 



Franklin drawn lightning from the clouds at the same time, it 
would have been at the hazard of expiring for it in flames. 

Later times have laid all the blame upon the Goths and Vandals ; 
but, however unwilling the partizans of the Christian system may 
be to believe or to acknowledge it, it is nevertheless true, that the 
age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system. — There 
was more knowledge in the world before that period, than for 
many centuries afterwards ; and as to religious knowledge, the 
Christian system, as already said, was only another species of 
mythology ; and the mythology to which it succeeded, was a cor- 
ruption of an ancient system of theism.* 

It is owing to this long interregnum of science, and to no other 
cause, that we have now to look through a vast chasm of many 
hundred years to the respectable characters we call the ancients. — 
Had the progression of knowledge gone on proportionably with 
the stock that before existed, that chasm would have been filled 
up with characters rising superior in knowledge to each other ; and 
those ancients we now so much admire, would have appeared 
respectably in the back ground of the scene. But the Christian 
system laid all waste ; and if we take our stand about the begin- 
ning of the sixteenth century, we look back through that long 
chasm, to the times of the ancients, as over a vast sandy desart, 
in which not a shrub appears to intercept the vision to the fertile 
hills beyond. 

* It is impossible for us now to know at what time the heathen mythology 
began ; but it is certain, from the internal evidence that it carries, that it did 
not begin in the same state or condition in which it ended. All the gods of 
that mythology, except Saturn, were of modern invention. The supposed 
reign of Saturn was prior to that which is called the heathen mythology, and 
was so far a species of theism, that it admitted the belief of only one God. 
Saturn is supposed to have abdicated the government in favor of his three sons 
and one daughter, Jupiter, Pluto, Neptune, and Juno ; after this, thousands of 
other gods and demi-gods were imagmarily created, and the calendar of gods 
increased as fast as the calendar of saints, and the calendars of courts have 
increased since. 

All the corruptions that have taken place, in theology and in religion, have 
been produced by admitting of what man calls revealed religion. The Myco- 
logists pretended to more revealed religion than the Christians do. They had 
their oracles and their priests, who were supposed to receive and deliver the 
word of God verbally, on almost all occasions. 

Since then all corruptions down from Molock to modern predestinarianism, 
and the human sacrifices of the heathens to the Christian sacrifice of the Crea- 
tor, have been produced by admitting of what is called revealed religion, the 
most effectual means to prevent all such evils and impositions is, not to admit 
of any other revelation than that which is manifested in the book of creation, 
and to contemplate the creation as the only true and real work of God that 
ever did, or ever will exist; and that every thing else, called the word of God, 
is fable and imposition. 



44 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I, 

It is an inconsistency scarcely possible to be credited, that any 
thing should exist, under the name of a religion, that held it to be 
irreligious to study and contemplate the structure of the universe 
that God had made. But the fact is too well established to be 
denied. The event that served more than any other to break the 
first link in this long chain of despotic ignorance, is that known by 
the name of the Reformation by Luther. From that time, though 
it does not appear to have made any part of the intention of 
Luther, or of those who are called reformers, the sciences began 
to revive, and liberality, their natural associate, began to appear. 
This was the only public good the Reformation did ; for, with 
respect to religious good, it might as well not have taken place* 
The mythology still continued the same ; and a multiplicity of 
National Popes grew out of the downfall of the Pope of Christ- 
endom. 

Having thus shown from the internal evidence of things, the 
cause that produced a change in the state of learning, and the 
motive for substituting the study of dead languages, in the place 
of the sciences, I proceed, in addition to the several observations,, 
already made in the former part of this work, to compare, or rather 
to confront the evidence that the structure of the universe affords* 
with the Christian system of religion ; but, as I cannot begin this 
part better than by referring to the ideas that occurred to me at 
an early part of life, and which I doubt not have occurred in some 
degree to almost every other person at one time or other, I shall 
state what those ideas were, and add thereto such other matter 
as shall arise out of the subject, giving to the whole, by way of 
preface, a short introduction. 

My father being of the Quaker profession, it was my good 
fortune to have an exceeding good moral education, and a tolera- 
ble stock of useful learning. Though I went to the grammar 
school,* I did not learn Latin, not only because I had no inclina- 
tion to learn languages, but because of the objection the Quakers 
have against the books in which the language is taught. But this 
did not prevent me from being acquainted with the subjects of ali 
the Latin books used in the school. 

The natural bent of my mind was to science. I had some 

* The same school, Thetford in Norfolk, that the present Counsellor Mir* 
gay went to, and under the same master. 



PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 45 

turn, and I believe some talent for poetry ; but this I rather 
repressed than encouraged, as leading too much into the field of 
imagination. As soon as I was able, I purchased a pair of globes, 
and attended the philosophical lectures of Martin and Ferguson, 
and became afterwards acquainted with Dr. Bevis, of the society, 
called the Royal Society, then living in the Temple, and an excel- 
lent astronomer. 

I had no disposition for what is called politics. It presented 
to my mind no other idea than is contained in the word Jockeyship. 
When, therefore, I turned my thoughts towards matters of gov- 
ernment, I had to form a system for myself, that accorded with 
the moral and philosophic principles in which I had been educated. 
I saw or at least I thought I saw, a vast scene opening itself to 
the world in the affairs of America ; and it appeared to n?e, that 
unless the Americans changed the plan they were then pursuing, 
with respect to the government of England, and declared them- 
selves independent, they would not only involve themselves in a 
multiplicity of new difficulties, but shut out the prospect that was 
then offering itself to mankind through their means. It was from 
these motives that I published the work known by the name of 
*' Common Sense," which is the first work I ever did publish ; and 
so far as I can judge of myself, I believe I should never have been 
known in the world as an author, on any subject whatever, had it 
not been for the affairs of America. I wrote " Common Sense" 
the latter end of the year 1775, and published it the first of Janu- 
ary, 1776. Independence was declared the fourth of July fol- 
lowing. 

Any person, who has made observations on the state and pro- 
gress of the human mind, by observing his own, cannot but have 
observed, that there are two distinct classes of what are called 
Thoughts those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and 
the act of thinking, and those that bolt into the mind of their own 
accord. I have always made it a rule to treat those voluntary 
visitors with civility, taking care to examine, as well as I was 
able, if they were worth entertaining ; and it is from them I have 
acquired almost all the knowledge that I have. As to the learning 
that any person gains from school education, it serves only, like a 
small capital, to put him in the way of beginning learning for him- 
self afterwards. — Every person of learning is finally his own 
teacher, the reason of which is, that principles, being of a distinct 



46 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I. 

quality to circumstances, cannot be impressed upon the memory ; 
their place of mental residence is the understanding, and they are 
never so lasting as when they begin by conception. Thus much 
for the introductory part. 

From the time I was capable of conceiving an idea, and acting 
upon it by reflection, I either doubted the truth of the Christian 
system, or thought it to be a strange affair ; I scarcely knew 
which it was : but I well remember, when about seven or eight 
years of age, hearing a sermon read by a relation of mine, who 
was a great devotee of the church, upon the subject of what is 
called redemption by the death of the Son of God. After the ser- 
mon was ended, I went into the garden, and as I was going down 
the garden steps (for I perfectly recollect the spot) I revolted at 
the recollection of what I had heard, and thought to myself that it 
was making God Almighty act like a passionate man, that 
killed his son, when he could not revenge himself any other way; 
and as I was sure a man would be hanged that did such a thing, I 
could not see for what purpose they preached such sermons. This 
was not one of those kind of thoughts that had any thing in it of 
childish levity ; it was to me a serious reflection, arising from the 
idea I had, that God was too good to do such an action, and also 
too almighty to be under any necessity of doing it. I believe in 
the same manner at this moment ; and I moreover believe, that 
any system of religion that has any thing in it that shocks the 
mind of a child, cannot be a true system. 

It seems as if parents of the Christian profession were ashamed 
to tell their children any thing about the principles of their religion. 
They sometimes instruct them in "morals, and talk to them of the 
goodness of what they call Providence ; for the Christian my- 
thology has five deities — there is God the Father, God the Son, 
God the Holy Ghost, the God Providence, and the Goddess Na- 
ture. But the Christian story of God the Father putting his son 
to death, or employing people to do it, (for that is the plain lan- 
guage of the story,) cannot be told by a parent to a child ; and to 
tell him that it was done to make mankind happier and better, is 
making the story still worse, as if mankind could be improved by 
the example of murder ; and to tell him that all this is a mystery, 
is only making an excuse for the incredibility of it. 

How different is this to the pure and simple profession of 
Deism ! The true Deist has but one Deity ; and his religion 



TART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 47 

consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of 
the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in every 
thing moral, scientifical, and mechanical. 

The religion that approaches the nearest of all others to true 
Deism, in the moral and benign part thereof, is that professed by 
the Quakers : but they have contracted themselves too much, by 
leaving the works of God out of their system. Though I rever- 
ence their philanthropy, I cannot help smiling at the conceit, that 
if the taste of a Quaker could have been consulted at the creation, 
what a silent and drab-colored creation it would have been ! Not 
a flower would have blossomed its gaities, nor a bird been permit- 
ted to sing. 

Quitting these reflections, I proceed to other matters. After I 
had made myself master of the use of the globes, and of the or- 
rery,* and conceived an idea of the infinity of space, and the eter- 
nal divisibility of matter, and obtained, at least, a general know- 
ledge of what is called natural philosophy, I began to compare, 
or, as I have before said, to confront the eternal evidence those 
things afford with the Christian system of faith. 

Though it is not a direct article of the Christian system, that 
this world that we inhabit, is the whole of the habitable creation, 
yet it is so worked up therewith, from what is called the Mosaic 
account of the Creation, the story of Eve and the apple, and the 
counterpart of that story, the death of the Son of God, that to be- 
lieve otherwise, that is, to believe that God created a plurality of 
worlds, at least as numerous as what we call stars, renders the 
Christian system of faith at once little and ridiculous, and scatters 
it in the mind like feathers in the air. The two beliefs cannot be 
held together in the same mind ; and. he who thinks that he be- 
lieves both, has thought but little of either. 

Though the belief of a plurality of worlds was familar to the an- 
cients, it is only within the last three centuries that the extent and 
dimensions of this globe that we inhabit have been ascertained. — 

* As this book may fall into the hands of persons who do .not know what an 
orrery is, it is for their information I add this note, as the name gives no idea 
of the uses of the thing. The orrery has its name from the person who in- 
vented it. It is a machinery of clock-work, representing the universe in min- 
iature, and in which the revolution of the earth round itself and round the 
sun, the revolution of the moon round the earth, the revolution of the planets 
round the sun, their relative distances from the sun, as the centre of the whole 
system, their relative distances from each other, and their different magni- 
tudes, are represented as they really exist in what we call the heavens. 



48 THE AGE OP REASON. [PART T. 

Several vessels, following the tract of the ocean, have sailed en- 
tirely round the world, as a man may march in a circle, and come 
round by the contrary side of the circle to the spot he set out from. 
The circular dimensions of our world, in the widest part, as a man 
would measure the widest round of an apple, or a ball, is only 
twenty-five thousand and twenty English miles, reckoning sixty- 
nine miles and an half to an equatorial degree, and may be sailed 
round in the space of about three years.* 

A world of this extent may, at first thought, appear to us to be 
great ; but if we compare it with the immensity of space in which 
it is suspended, like a bubble or balloon in the air, it is infinitely 
less, in proportion, than the smallest grain of sand is to the size of 
the world, or the finest particle of dew to the whole ocean, and is 
therefore but small ; and, as will be hereafter shown, is only one 
of a system of worlds, of which the universal creation is com- 
posed. 

It is not difficult to gain some faint idea of the immensity of 
space in which this and all the other worlds are suspended, if we 
follow a progression of ideas. When we think of the size or 
dimensions of a room, our ideas limit themselves to the walls, and 
there they stop ; but when our eye, or our imagination darts into 
space, that is, when it looks upwards into what we call the open 
air, we cannot conceive any walls or boundaries it can have : and 
if for the sake of resting our ideas, we suppose a boundary, the 
question immediately renews itself, and asks, what is beyond that 
boundary ? and in the same manner, what beyond the next boun- 
dary 1 and so on till the fatigued imagination returns and says, 
there is no end. Certainly, then, the Creator was not pent for 
room, when he made this world no larger than it is ; and we have 
to seek the reason in something else. 

If we take a survey of our own world, or rather of this, of which 
the Creator has given us the use, as our portion in the immense 
system of Creation, we find every part of it, the earth, the waters, 
and the air that surrounds it, filled, and, as it were, crowded with 
life, down from the largest animals that we know of to the smallest 
insects the naked eye can behold, and from thence to others still 

* Allowing a ship to sail, on an average, three miles in an hour, she would 
sail entirely round the world in less than one year, if she could sail in a direct 
■ circle ; but she is obliged to follow the course of the ocean. 



PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 40 

smaller, and totally invisible without the assistance of the micro- 
scope. Every tree, every plant, every leaf, serves not only as an 
habitation, but as**- a world to some numerous race, till animal 
existence becomes so exceedingly refined, that the effluvia of a 
blade of grass would be food for thousands. 

Since then no part of our earth is left unoccupied, why is it to 
be supposed that the immensity of space is a naked void, lying in 
eternal waste ? There is room for millions of worlds as large or 
larger than ours, and each of them millions of miles apart from 
each other. 

Having now arrived at this point, if we carry our ideas only 
one thought further, we shall see, perhaps, the true reason, at 
least a very good reason, for our happiness, v/hy the Creator, in- 
stead of making one immense world, extending over an immense 
quantity of space, has preferred dividing that quantity of matter 
into several distinct and separate worlds, which we call planets, 
of which our earth is one. But before I explain my ideas upon 
this subject, it is necessary (not for the sake of those that already 
know, but for those who do not) to show what the system of the 
universe is. 

That part of the universe that is called the solar system (mean- 
ing the system of worlds to which our earth belongs, and of which 
Sol, or in English language, the Sun, is the centre) consists, be- 
sides the Sun, of six distinct orbs, or planets, or worlds, besides 
the secondary bodies, called the satellites or moons, of which our 
earth has one that attends her in her annual revolution round the 
Sun, in like manner as other sattelites or moons, attend the 
planets or worlds to which they severally belong, as may be seen 
by the assistance of the telescope. 

The Sun is the centre, round which those six worlds or planets 
revolve at different distances therefrom, and in circles concen- 
trate to each other. Each world keeps constantly in nearly 
the same track round the Sun, and continues, at the same time, 
turning round itself, in nearly an upright position, as a top turns 
round itself when it is spinning on the ground, and leans a little 
sideways. 

It is this leaning of the earth (23J degrees) that occasions sum- 
mer and winter, and the different length of days and nights. If the 
earth turned round itself in a position perpendicular to the plane or 

level of the circle it moves in around the Sun, as a top turns round 

7 



50 v THE AGE OF REASON. [PART f. 

when it stands erect on the ground, the days and nights would he 
always of the same length, twelve hours day and twelve hours night, 
and the seasons would be uniformly the same throughout the year. 

Every time that a planet (our earth for example) turns round 
itself, it makes what we call day and night ; and every time it 
goes entirely round the Sun, it makes what we call a year, conse- 
quently our world turns three hundred and sixty-five times round 
itself, in going once round the Sun.* 

The names that the ancients gave to those six worlds, and 
which are still called by the same names, are Mercury, Venus, 
this world that we call ours, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. They 
appear larger to the eye than the stars, being many million miles 
nearer to our earth than any of the stars are. The planet Venus 
is that which is called the evening star, and sometimes the morn- 
ing star, as she happens to set after, or rise before the Sun, which, 
in either case, is never more than three hours. 

The Sun, as before said, being the centre, the planet, or world, 
nearest the Sun, is Mercury ; his distance from the Sun is thirty- 
four million miles, and he moves round in a circle always at that 
distance from the Sun, as a top may be supposed to spin round in 
the track in which a horse goes in a mill. The second world is 
Venus, she is fifty-seven million miles distant from the Sun, and 
consequently moves round in a circle much greater than that of 
Mercury. The third world is that we inhabit, and which is eighty- 
eight million miles distant from the Sun, and consequently moves 
round in a circle greater than that of Venus. The fourth world 
is Mars, he is distant from the Sun one hundred and thirty-four 
million miles, and consequently moves round in a circle greater 
than that of our earth. The fifth is Jupiter, he is distant from 
the Sun five hundred and fifty-seven million miles, and conse- 
quently moves round in a circle greater than that of Mars. The 
sixth world is Saturn, he is distant from the Sun seven hundred 
and sixty-three million miles, and consequently moves round in a 
circle that surrounds the circles, or orbits, of all the other worlds 
or planets. 

The space, therefore, in the air, or in the immensity of space, 
that our solar system takes up for the several worlds to perform 

* Those who supposed that the Sun went round the earth every 24 hours, 
macle the same mistake in idea that a cook would do in fact, that should 
make the fire go round the meat, instead of the meat tinning round itself to- 
wards the fire. 



5PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 51 

their revolutions in round the Sun, is of the extent in a straight line 
of the whole diameter of the orbit or cicle, in which Saturn moves 
round the Sun, which being double his distance from the Sun, is fif- 
teen hundred and twenty-six million miles : and its circular extent 
is nearly five thousand million ; and its globical content is almost 
three thousand five hundred million times three thousand five hun- 
dred million square miles.* 

But this, immense as it is, is only one system of worlds. Be- 
yond this, at a vast distance into space, far beyond all power of 
calculation, are the stars called the fixed stars. They are called 
fixed, because they have no revolutionary motion, as the six 
worlds or planets have that I have been describing. Those fixed 
stars continue always at the same distance from each other, and 
always in the same place, as the Sun does in the centre of our 
system. The probability, therefore, is, that each of those fixed 
stars is also a Sun, round which another system of worlds or 
planets, though too remote for us to discover, performs its revo- 
lutions, as our system of worlds does round our central Sun. 

By this easy progression of ideas, the immensity of space will 
appear to us to be filled with systems of worlds ; and that no part 
©f space lies at waste, any more than any part of the globe or 
earth and water is left unoccupied. 

Having thus endeavoured to convey, in a familiar and easy 
manner, some idea of the structure of the universe, I return to 
explain what I before alluded to, namely, the great benefits arising 
to man in consequence of the Creator having made a plurality of 
worlds, such as our system is, consisting of a central Sun and six 
worlds, besides satellites, in preference to that of creating one 
world only of a vast extent. 

* If it should be asked, how can man know these things ? I have one plain 
answer to give, which is, that man knows how to calculate an eclipse, and 
also how to calculate to a minute of time when the planet Venus, in making 
her revolutions round the Sun, will come in a straight line between our earth 
and the Sun, and will appear to us about the size of a large pea passing across 
the face of the Sun. This happens but twice in about an hundred years, at 
the distance of about eight years from each other, and has happened twice in 
our time, both of which were foreknown by calculation. It can also be known 
when they will happen again for a thousand years to come, or to any other 
portion of time. As, therefore, man could not be able to do these things if he 
did not understand the solar system, and the manner in which the revolutions 
of the several planets or worlds are performed, the fact of calculating an 
eclipse, or a transit of Venus, is a proof in point that the knowledge exists ; 
and as to a few thousand, or even a few million miles, more or less, w it makes 
scarcely any sensible difference in such immense distances. 



52 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I» 

It is an idea I have never lost sight of, that all our knowledge 
of science is derived from the revolutions (exhibited to our eye, 
and from thence to our understanding) which those several planets 
or worlds, of which our system is composed, make in their circuit 
round the Sun. 

Had then the quantity of matter which these six worlds con- 
tain been blended into one solitary globe, the consequence to us 
would have been, that either no revolutionary motion would have 
existed, or not a sufficiency of it to give us the idea and the 
knowledge of science we now have ; and it is from the sciences 
that all the mechanical arts that contribute so much to our earthly 
felicity and comfort, are derived. 

As, therefore, the Creator made nothing in vain, so also must 
it be believed that He organized the structure of the universe in 
the most advantageous manner for the benefit of man ; and as 
we see, and from experience feel, the benefits we derive from the 
structure of the universe, formed as it is, which benefits we should 
not have had the opportunity of enjoying, if the structure, so far 
as relates to our system, had been a solitary globe — we can dis- 
cover at least one reason why a plurality of worlds has been 
made, and that reason calls forth the devotional gratitude of man, 
as well as his admiration. 

But it is not to us, the inhabitants of this globe, only, that the 
benefits arising from a plurality of worlds are limited. The in- 
habitants of each of the worlds of which our system is composed, 
enjoy the same opportunities of knowledge as we do. They be- 
hold the revolutionary motions of our earth, as we behold theirs. 
All the planets revolve in sight of each other ; and, therefore, the 
same universal school of science presents itself to all. 

Neither does the knowledge stop here. The system of worlds 
next to us exhibits, in its revolutions, the same principles and 
school of science, to the inhabitants of their system, as our system 
does to us, and in like manner throughout the immensity of space. 

Our ideas, not only of the almightiness of the Creator, but of 
his wisdom and his beneficence, become enlarged in proportion as 
we contemplate the extent and the structure of the universe. The 
solitary idea of a solitary world, rolling or at rest in the immense 
ocean of space, gives place to the cheerful idea of a society of 
worlds, so happily contrived as to administer, even by their mo- 
tion, instruction to man. We see our own earth filled with abund- 



PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. s 53 

ance ; but we forget to consider how much of that abundance is 
owing to the scientific knowledge the vast machinery of the uni- 
verse has unfolded. 

But, in the midst of those reflections, what are we to think of 
the Christian system of faith, that forms itself upon the idea of 
only one world, and that of no greater extent, as is before shown, 
than twenty- five thousand miles? An extent which a man, walk- 
ing at the rate of three miles an hour, for twelve hours in the day, 
could he keep on in a circular direction, would walk entirely 
round in less than two years. Alas ! what is this to the mighty 
ocean of space, and the almighty power of the Creator ! 

From whence then could arise the solitary and strange conceit, 
that the Almighty, who had millions of worlds equally dependent 
on his protection, should quit the care of all the rest, and come 
to die in our world, because, they say, one man and one woman 
had eaten an apple ! And, on the other hand, are we to suppose 
that every world in the boundless creation, had an Eve, an apple, 
a serpent and a redeemer? In this case, the person who is irre- 
verently called the Son of God, and sometimes God himself, 
would have nothing else to do than to travel from world to world, 
in an endless succession of death, with scarcely a momentary 
interval of life. 

It has been by rejecting the evidence, that the word or works 
of God in the creation affords to our senses, and the action of our 
reason upon that evidence, that so many wild and whimsical sys- 
tems of faith, and of religion, have been fabricated and set up. 
There may be many systems of religion, that so far from being 
morally bad, are in many respects morally good : but there can be 
but one that is true ; and that one necessarily must, as it ever 
will, be in all things consistent with the ever existing word of God 
that we behold in his works. But such is the strange construc- 
tion of the Christian system of faith, that every evidence the 
Heavens afford to man, either directly contradicts it, or renders 
it absurd. 

It is possible to believe, and I always feel pleasure in encourag- 
ing myself to believe it, that there have been men in the world, 
who persuade themselves that, what is called a pious fraud, might, 
at least under particular circumstances, be productive of some 
good. But the fraud being once established, could not afterwards 



54 , THE AGE OP REASON. [PART U 

be explained ; for it is with a pious fraud as with a bad action, it 
begets a calamitous necessity of going on. 

The persons who first preached the Christian system of faith, 
and in some measure combined it with the morality preached by 
Jesus Christ, might persuade themselves that it was better than 
the heathen mythology that then prevailed. From the first 
preachers the fraud went on. to the second, and to the third, till the 
idea of its being a pious fraud became lost in the belief of its 
being true ; and that belief became again encouraged by the 
interests of those who made a livelihood by preaching it. 

But though such a belief might, by such means, be rendered 
aknost general among the laity, it is next to impossible to account 
for the continual persecution carried on by the church, for several 
hundred years, against the sciences, and against the professors of 
sciences, if the church had not some record or tradition, that it 
was originally no other than a pious fraud, or did not foresee, that 
it could not be maintained against the evidence that the structure 
of the universe afforded. 

Having thus shown the irreconcileable inconsistencies between 
the real word of God existing in the universe and that which is 
called the word of God, as shown to us in a printed book that any 
man might make, I proceed to speak of the three principal means 
that have been employed in all ages, and perhaps in all countries, 
to impose upon mankind. 

Those three means are Mystery, Miracle, and Prophesy. The 
two first are incompatible with true religion, and the third ought 
always to be suspected. 

With respect to mystery, every thing we behold is, in one sense, 
a mystery to us. Our own existence is a mystery ; the whole 
vegetable world is a mystery. We cannot account how it is that 
an acorn, when put into the ground, is made to develope itself, 
and become an oak. We know not how it is that the seed we sow 
unfolds and multiplies itself, and returns to us such an abundant 
interest for so small a capital. 

The fact, however, as distinct from the operating cause, is not 
a mystery, because we see it ; and we know also the means we 
are to use, which is no other than putting seed in the ground. — 
We know, therefore, as much as is necessary for us to know ; and 
that part of the operation that we do not know, and which if we 
did, we could not perform, the Creator takes upon himself and 



PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 55 

performs it for us. We are, therefore, better off than if we had 
been let into the secret, and left to do it for ourselves. 

But though every created thing is, in this sense, a mystery, the 
word mystery cannot be applied to moral truth, any more than 
obscurity can be applied to light. The God in whom we believe 
is a God of moral truth, and not a God of mystery or obscurity. 
Mystery is the antagonist of truth. It is a fog of human invention, 
that obscures truth, and represents it in distortion. Truth never 
envelopes itself in mystery ; and the mystery in which it is at any 
time enveloped, is the work of its antagonist, and never of itself. 

Religion, therefore, being the belief of a God, and the practice 
of moral truth, cannot have connection with mystery. The belief 
of a God, so far from having any thing of mystery in it, is of all 
beliefs the most easy, because it arises to us, as is before obser- 
ved, out of necessity. And the practice of moral truth, or, in 
other words, a practical imitation of the moral goodness of God, 
is no other than our acting towards each other as he acts benignly 
towards all. We cannot serve God in the manner we serve those 
who cannot do without such service ; and, therefore, the only idea 
we can have of serving God, is that of contributing to the happi- 
ness of the living creation that God has made. This cannot be 
done by retiring ourselves from the society of the world, and 
spending a recluse life in selfish devotion. 

The very nature and design of religion, if I may so express it, 
prove, even to demonstration, that it must be free from every thing 
of mystery, and unincumbered with every thing that is mysterious. 
Religion, considered as a duty, is incumbent upon every living 
soul alike, and, therefore, must be on a level to the understanding 
and comprehension of all. Man does not learn religion as he 
learns the secrets and mysteries of a trade. He learns the theory 
of religion by reflection. It arises out of the action of his own 
mind upon the things which he sees, or upon what he may happen 
to hear or to read, and the practice joins itself thereto. 

When men, whether from policy or pious fraud, set up systems 
of religion incompatible with the word or works of God in the 
creation, and not only above, but repugnant to human comprehen- 
sion, they were under the necessity of inventing or adopting a 
word that should serve as a bar to all questions, inquiries and 
speculations. The word mystery answered this purpose ; and 



56 - THE AGE OF REASON. j_PART I. 

thus it has happened that religion, which is in itself without 
mystery, has been corrupted into a fog of mysteries. 

As mystery answered all general purposes, miracle followed as 
an occasional auxiliary. The former served to bewilder the 
mind ; the latter to puzzle the senses. The one was the lingo, 
the other the legerdemain. 

But before going further into this subject, it will be proper to 
inquire what is to be understood by a miracle. 

In the same sense that every thing may be said to be a mystery, 
so also may it be said that every thing is a miracle, and that no 
one thing is a greater miracle than another. The elephant, 
though larger, is not a greater miracle than a mite ; nor a 
mountain a greater miracle than an atom. To an almighty 
power, it is no more difficult to make the one than the other ; 
and no more difficult to make a million of worlds than to make 
one. Every thing, therefore, is a miracle, in one sense, whilst 
in the other sense, there is no such thing as a miracle. It is 
a miracle when compared to our power, and to our comprehen- 
sion ; it is not a miracle compared to the power that performs it ; 
but as nothing in this description conveys the idea that is affixed 
to the word miracle, it is necessary to carry the inquiry further. 

Mankind have conceived to themselves certain laws, by which 
what they call nature is supposed to act ; and that a miracle is 
something contrary to the operation and effect of those laws, but 
unless we know the whole extent of those laws, and of what arc 
commonly called the powers of nature, we are not able to judge 
whether anything that may appear to us wonderful or miraculous, be 
within, or be beyond, or be contrary to, her natural power of acting. 

The ascension of a man several miles high into the air, would 
have every thing in it that constitutes the idea of a miracle, if it 
were not known that a species of air can be generated several 
times lighter than the common atmospheric air, and yet possess 
elasticity enough to prevent the balloon, in which that light air is 
enclosed, from being compressed into as many times less bulk, by 
the common air that surrounds it. In like manner, extracting 
flames or sparks of fire from the human body, as visible as from 
a steel struck with a flint, and causing iron or steel to move with- 
out any visible agent, would also give the idea of a miracle, if 
we were not acquainted with electricity and magnetism ; so also 
would many other experiments in natural philosophy, to those 



PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 57 

who are not acquainted with the subject. The restoring persons 
to life, who are to appearance dead, as is practised upon drowned 
persons, would also be a miracle, if it were not known that ani- 
mation is capable of being suspended without being extinct. 

Besides these, there are performances by slight of hand, and by 
persons acting in concert, that have a miraculous appearance, 
which, when known, are thought nothing of. And, besides these, 
there are mechanical and optical deceptions. There is now an 
exhibition in Paris of ghosts or spectres, which, though it is not 
imposed upon the spectators as a fact, has an astonishing appear- 
ance. As, therefore, we know not the extent to which either 
nature or art can go, there is no criterion to determine what a 
miracle is ; and mankind, in giving credit to appearances, under 
the idea of their being miracles, are subject to be continually im- 
posed upon. 

Since then appearances are so capable of deceiving, and things 
not real have a strong resemblance to things that are, nothing can 
be more inconsistent than to suppose that the Almighty would 
make use of means, such as are called miracles, that would sub- 
ject the person who performed them to the suspicion of being an 
impostor, and the person who related them to be suspected of 
lying, and the doctrine intended to be supported thereby to be 
suspected as a fabulous invention. 

Of all the modes of evidence that ever were intended to obtain 
belief to any system or opinion to which the name of religion has 
been given, that of miracle, however successful the imposition 
may have been, is the most inconsistent. For, in the first place, 
whenever recourse is had to show, for the purpose of procuring 
that belief, (for a miracle, under any idea of the word, is a show,) 
it implies a lameness or weakness in the doctrine that is preached. 
And, in the second place, it is degrading the Almighty into the 
character of a show-man, playing tricks to amuse and make the 
people stare and wonder. It is also the most equivocal sort of 
evidence that can be set up ; for the belief is not to depend upon 
the thing called a miracle, but upon the credit of the reporter, 
who says that he saw it ; and, therefore, the thing, were it true, 
would have no better chance of being believed than if it were a lie. 

Suppose I were to say, that when I sat down to write this book, 
a hand presented itself in the air, took up the pen and wrote every 
word that is herein written ; would any body believe me 1 Cer* 

8 



58 « THE AGE Or REASON. [PART U 

tainly they would not. Would they believe me a whit the more 
if the thing had been a fact ; certainly they would not. Since 
then a real miracle, were it to happen, would be subject to the 
same fate as the falsehood, the inconsistency becomes the greater, 
of supposing the Almighty would make use of means that would 
not answer the purpose for which they were intended,, even if they 
were real. 

If we are to suppose a miracle to be something so entirely out 
of the course of what is called nature, that she must go out of 
that course to accomplish it, and we see an account given of 
such miracle by the person who said he saw it, it raises a ques- 
tion in the mind very easily decided, which is, is it more probable 
that nature should go out of her course, or that a man should 
tell a lie ? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of 
her course ; but we have good reason to believe that millions 
of lies have been told in the same time ; it is, therefore, at least 
millions to one, that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie. 

The story of the whale swallowing Jonah, though a whale is 
large enough to do it, borders greatly on the marvellous ; but it 
would have approached nearer to the idea of miracle, if Jonah < 
had swallowed the whale. In this, which may serve for all cases 
of miracles, the matter would decide itself, as before stated, 
namely, is it more probable that a man should have swallowed a 
whale or told a lie. 

But supposing that Jonah had really swallowed the whale, and 
gone with it in his belly to Ninevah, and to convince the people 
that it was true, have cast it up in their sight, of the full length and 
size of a whale, would they not have believed him to have been the 
devil, instead of a prophet? or, if the whale had carried Jonah to 
Ninevah, and cast him up in the same public manner, would they 
not have believed the whale to have been the devil, and Jonah one 
of his imps. 

The most extraordinary of all the things called miracles, related 
in the New Testament, is that of the devil flying away with Jesus 
Christ, and carrying him to the top of a high mountain ; and to the 
top of the highest pinnacle of the temple, and showing him and 
promising to him all the kingdoms of the world. How happened it 
that he did not discover America ; or is it only with kingdoms that 
his sooty highness has any interest? 



PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 59 

I have too much respect for the moral character of Christ, to 
believe that he told this whale of a miracle himself : neither is it 
easy to account for what purpose it could have been fabricated, 
unless it were to impose upon the connoisseurs of miracles, as is 
sometimes practised upon the connoisseurs of Queen Anne's far- 
things, and collectors of relics and antiquities ; or to render the 
belief of miracles, ridiculous, by outdoing miracles, as Don Quix- 
otte outdid chivalry ; or to embarrass the belief of miracles, by 
making it doubtful by what power, whether of God or the Devil, 
any thing called a miracle was performed. It requires, however, 
a great deal of faith in the devil to believe this miracle. 

In every point of view in which those things called miracles can 
be placed and considered, the reality of them is improbable, and 
their existence unnecessary. They would not, as before observed, 
answer any useful purpose, even if they were true ; for it is more 
difficult to obtain belief to a miracle, than to a principle evidently 
moral, without any miracle. Moral principle speaks universally for 
itself. Miracle could be but a thing of the moment, and seen but 
by a few ; after this it requires a transfer of faith from God to man 
to believe a miracle upon man's report. Instead, therefore, of ad- 
mitting the recitals of miracles as evidence of any system of reli- 
gion being true, they ought to be considered as symptoms of its 
being fabulous. It is necessary to the full and upright character 
of truth that it rejects the crutch ; and it is consistent with the 
character of fable, to seek the aid that truth rejects. Thus much 
for mystery and miracle. 

As mystery and miracle took charge of the past and the present, 
prophesy took charge of the future, and rounded the tenses of 
faith. It was not sufficient to know what had been done, but what 
would be done. The supposed prophet was the supposed historian 
of times to come ; and if he happened, in shooting with a long 
bow of a thousand years, to strike within a thousand miles of a 
mark, the ingenuity of posterity could make it point-blank ; and if 
he happened to be directly wrong, it was only to suppose, as in the 
case of Jonah and Ninevah, that God had repented himself and 
changed his mind. What a fool do fabulous systems make of 
man ! 

It has been shown, in a former part of this work, that the 
original meaning of the words prophet and prophesying has been 
changed, and that a prophet, in the sense of the word as now used. 



60 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I. 

is a creature of modern invention ; and it is owing to this change in 
the meaning of the words, that the nights and metaphors of the Jew- 
ish poets, and phrases and expressions now rendered obscure, by 
our not being acquainted with the local circumstances to which 
they applied at the time they were used, have been erected into 
prophecies, and made to bend to explanations, at the will and 
whimsical conceits of sectaries, expounders and commentators. 
Every thing unintelligible was prophetical, and every thing insig- 
nificant was typical. A blunder would have served as a prophe- 
cy ; and a dish-clout for a type* 

If by a prophet we are to suppose a man, to whom the Almighty 
communicated some event that would take place in future, either 
there were such men, or there were not. If there were, it is con- 
sistent to believe that the event so communicated, would be told in 
terms that could be understood ; and not related in such a loose 
and obscure manner as to be out of the comprehensions of those 
that heard it, and so equivocal as to fit almost any circumstance 
that might happen afterwards. It is conceiving very irreverently 
of the Almighty, to suppose he would deal in this jesting manner 
with mankind ; yet all the things called prophesies in the book 
called the Bible, come under this description. 

But it is with prophecy as it is with miracle ; it could not ans- 
wer the purpose even if it were real. Those to whom a prophecy 
should be told, could not tell whether the maji prophesied or lied, 
or whether it had been revealed to him, or whether he conceited 
it ; and if the thing that he prophesied, or intended to prophecy, 
should happen, or something like it, among the multitude of things 
that are daily happening, nobody could again know whether he 
foreknew it, or guessed at it, or whether it was accidental. A pro- 
phet, therefore, is a character useless and unnecessary ; and the 
safe side of the case is, to guard against being imposed upon by 
not giving credit to such relations. 

Upon the whole, mystery, miracle, and prophecy, are appen- 
dages that belong to fabulous and not to true religion. They are 
the means by which so many Lo heres ! and Lo theres ! have been 
spread about the world, and religion been made into a trade. The 
success of one imposter gave encouragement to another, and the 
quieting salvo of doing some good by keeping up a pious frauds 
protected them from remorse. 



PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 61 

Having now extended the subject to a greater length than I first 
intended, I shall bring it to a close by abstracting a summary 
from the whole. 

First — That the idea or belief of a word of God existing in 
print, or in writing, or in speech, is inconsistent in itself for 
reasons already assigned. These reasons, among many others* 
are the want of an universal language ; the mutability of language * a 
the errors to which translations are subject ; the possibility of 
totally suppressing such a word ; the probability of altering it, or 
of fabricating the whole, and imposing it upon the world. 

Secondly — That the Creation we behold is the real and ever 
existing word of God, in which we cannot be deceived. It pro- 
claims his power, it demonstrates his wisdom, it manifests his 
goodness and beneficence. 

Thirdly — That the moral duty of man consists in imitating the 
moral goodness and beneficence of God manifested in the crea- 
tion towards all his creatures. That seeing as we daily do the 
goodness of God to all men, it is an example calling upon all men 
to practise the same towards each other ; and, consequently, that 
every thing of persecution and revenge between man and man, and 
every thing of cruelty to animals, is a violation of moral duty. 

I trouble not myself about the manner of future existence. I 
content myself with believing, even to positive conviction, that 
the power that gave me existence is able to continue it, in any 
form and manner he pleases, either with or without this body ; and 
it appears more probable to me that I shall continue to exist here- 
after, than that I should have had existence, as I now have, before 
that existence began. 

It is certain that, in one point, all nations of the earth and all 
religions agree ; all believe in a God ; the things in which they 
disagree, are the redundancies annexed to that belief ; and, there- 
fore, if ever an universal religion should prevail, it will not be 
believing any thing new, but in getting rid of redundancies, and 
believing as man believed at first. Adam, if ever there was such 
a man, was created a Deist ; but in the mean time, let every man 
follow, as he has a right to do, the religion and the worship he 
prefers. 



END OF THE FIRST PART. 



THE 

AGE OF REASON. 

PART SECOND. 



PREFACE. 



I have mentioned in the former part of The Age of Reason, that 
it had long been my intention to publish my thoughts upon reli- 
gion ; but that I had originally reserved it to a later period in life, 
intending it to be the last work I should undertake. The circum- 
stances, however, which existed in France in the latter end of the 
year 1793, determined me to delay it no longer. The just and 
humane principles of the revolution which philosophy had first 
diffused, had been departed from. The idea, always dangerous 
to society as it is derogatory to the Almighty, that priests could 
forgive sins, though it seemed to exist no longer, had blunted the 
feelings of humanity, and callously prepared men for the commis- 
sion of all manner of crimes. The intolerant spirit of church 
persecutions had transferred itself into politics ; the tribunal, 
styled revolutionary, supplied the place of an inquisition ; and the 
guillotine and the stake outdid the fire and faggot of the church. 
I saw many of my most intimate friends destroyed ; others daily 
carried to prison ; and I had reason to believe, and had also 
intimations given me, that the same danger was approaching my- 
self. 

Under these disadvantages, I began the former part of the Age 
of Reason ; I had, besides, neither Bible nor Testament to refer 
to, though I was writing against both ; nor could I procure any ; 
notwithstanding which, I have produced a work that no Bible be- 
liever, though writing at his ease, and with a library of church 
books about him, can refute. Towards the latter end of Decem- 
ber of that year, a motion was made and carried, to exclude 
foreigners from the convention. There were but two in it, 
Anacharsis Cloots and myself; and I saw, I was particularly 
pointed atbv Bourdon de l'Oise, in his speech on that motion. 

9 



PREFACE. 



Conceiving, after this, that I had but a few days of liberty, I sat 
down and brought the work to a close as speedily as possible ; 
and I had not finished it more than six hours, in the state it has 
since appeared, before a guard came there about three in the 
morning, with an order signed by the two committees of public 
safety and surety-general, for putting me in arrestation as a 
foreigner, and conveyed me to the prison of the Luxembourg. I 
contrived, in my way there, to call on Joel Barlow, and I put the 
manuscript of the work into his hands, as more safe than in my 
possession in prison ; and not knowing what might be the fate in 
France, either of the writer or the work, I addressed it to the 
protection of the citizens of the United States. 

It is with justice that I say, that the guard who executed this 
order, and the interpreter of the Committee of general surety, 
who accompanied them to examine my papers, treated me not 
only with civility, but with respect. The keeper of the Luxem- 
bourg, Bennoit, a man of a good heart, showed to me every friend- 
ship in his power, as did also all his family, while he continued in 
that station. He was removed from it, put into arrestation, and 
carried before the tribunal upon a malignant accusation, but ac- 
quitted. 

After I had been in the Luxembourg about three weeks, the 
Americans, then in Paris, went in a body to the convention, to 
reclaim me as their countryman and friend ; but were answered 
by the President, Vader, who was also President of the Committee 
of surety-general, and had signed the order for my arrestation, 
that I was born in England. I heard no more, after this, from any 
person out of the walls of the prison, till the fall of Robespierre, 
on the 9th of Thermidor— July 27, 1794. 

About two months before this event, I was seized with a fever, 
that in its progress had every symptom of becoming mortal, and 
from the effects of which I am not recovered. It was then that I 
remembered with renewed satisfaction, and congratulated myself 
most sincerely on having written the former part of " The Age of 
Reason." I had then but little expectation of surviving, and those 
about me had less. I know, therefore, by experience, the consci- 
entious trial of my own principles. 

I was then with three chamber comrades, Joseph Vanheule, of 
Bruges, Charles Bastini, and Michael Bubyns, of Louvain. The 
unceasing and anxious attention of these three friends to me, by 



PREFACE. 



67 



night and by day, I remember with gratitude, and mention with 
pleasure. It happened that a physician (Dr. Graham) and a 
surgeon, (Mr. Bond,) part of the suite of General O'Hara, were 
then in the Luxembourg. I ask not myself, whether it be con- 
venient to them, as men under the English government, that I 
express to them my thanks ; but I should reproach myself if I 
did not ; and also to the physician of the Luxembourg, Dr. 
Markoski. 

I have some reason to believe, because I cannot discover any 
other cause, that this illness preserved me in existence. Among 
the papers of Robespierre that were examined and reported upon 
to the Convention, by a Committee of Deputies, is a note in the 
hand-writing of Robespierre, in the following words : — 

" Demander que Thomas Paine soit To demand that a decree of accusa-. 
decrete d'accusation, pour l'interet de tion be passed against Thomas Paine, 
1'Amerique autant que dc la France." for the interest of America, as well as 

of France. 

From what cause it was that the intention was not put in exe- 
cution, I know not, and cannot inform myself; and therefore I 
ascribe it to impossibility, on account of that illness. 

The Convention, to repair as much as lay in their power 
the injustice I had sustained, invited me publicly and unani- 
mously to return into the Convention, and which I accepted, 
to show I could bear an injury without permitting it to injure 
my principles or my disposition. It is not because right prin- 
ciples have been violated, that they are to be abandoned. 

I have seen, since I have been at liberty, several publica- 
tions written, some in America, and some in England, as 
answers to the former part of " The Age of Reason." If 
the authors of these can amuse themselves by so doing, I 
shall not interrupt them. They may write against the work, 
and against me, as much as they please ; they do me more 
service than they intend, and I can have no objection that 
they write on. They will find, however, by this second part, 
without its being written as an answer to them, that they 
must return to their work, and spin their cobweb over again. 
The first is brushed away by accident. 

They will now find that I have furnished myself with a 
Bible and a Testament ; and I can say also that I have found 
them to be much worse books than I had conceived. If I 



68 



PREFACE. 



have erred in any thing, in the former part of the Age of 
Reason, it has been by speaking better of some parts of those 
books than they have deserved. 

I observe that all my opponents resort, more or less* to 
what they call Scripture Evidence and Bible authority, to help 
them out. They are so little masters of the subject, as to 
confound a dispute about authenticity with a dispute about 
doctrines ; I will, however, put them right, that if they should 
be disposed to write any more, they may know how to begin. 

THOMAS PAINE. 

October, 1795 



V 



THE 

AGE OF REASON. 

PART THE SECOND. 

It has often been said, that any thing may be proved from the 
Bible, but before any thing can be admitted as proved by the Bible, 
the Bible itself must be proved to be true ; for if the Bible be not 
true, or the truth of it be doubtful, it ceases to have authority, and 
cannot be admitted as proof of any thing. 

It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on the 
Bible, and of all Christian priests and preachers, to impose the 
Bible on the world as a mass of truth, and as the word of God ; 
they have disputed and wrangled, and have anathematized each 
other about the supposable meaning of particular parts and passa- 
ges therein ; one has said and insisted that such a passage meant 
such a thing ; another that it meant directly the contrary ; and a 
third, that it means neither one nor the other, but something differ- 
ent from both ; and this they call understanding the Bible. 

It has happened, that all the answers which I have seen to the 
former part of the Age of Reason have been written by priests ; 
and these pious men, like their predecessors, contend and wrangle, 
and pretend to understand the Bible ; each understands it differ- 
ently, but each understands it best ; and they have agreed in no- 
thing, but in telling their readers that Thomas Paine understands 
it not. 

Now instead of wasting their time, and heating themselves in 
fractious disputations about doctrinal points drawn from the Bible, 
these men ought to know, and if they do not, it is civility to inform 



*70 THE AGE OP REASON. [PART II. 

them, that the first thing to be understood is, whether there is suf- 
ficient authority for believing the Bible to be the word of God, or 
whether there is not 1 

There are matters in that book, said to be done by the express 
command of God, that are as shocking to humanity, and to every 
idea we have of moral justice, as any thing done by Robespierre, 
by Carrier, by Joseph le Bon, in France, by the English govern- 
ment in the East Indies, or by any other assassin in modern times. 
When we read in the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, &c. that 
they (the Israelites) came by stealth upon whole nations of people, 
who, as the history itself shows, had given them no offence ; that 
they put all those nations to the sword ; that they spared neither 
age nor infancy ; that they utterly destroyed men, women and chil- 
dren; that they left not a soul to breathe; expressions that are 
repeated over and over again in those books, and that too with 
exulting ferocity ; are we sure these things are facts 1 Are we 
sure that the Creator of man commissioned these things to be 
done ; are we sure that the books that tell us so were written by 
his authority ? 

It is not the antiquity of a tale that is any evidence of its truth ; 
on the contrary, it is a symptom of its being fabulous ; for the more 
ancient any history pretends to be, the more it has the resemblance 
of a fable. The origin of every nation is buried in fabulous tra- 
dition, and that of the Jews is as much to be suspected as any 
other. To charge the commission of acts upon the Almighty, 
which in their own nature, and by every rule of moral justice, are 
crimes, as all assassination is, and more especially the assassina- 
tion of infants, is matter of serious concern. The Bible tells us, 
that those assassinations were done by the express command of 
God. To believe, therefore, the Bible to be true, we must un- 
believe all our belief in the moral justice of God ; for wherein 
could crying or smiling infants offend 1 And to read the Bible 
without horror, we must undo every thing that is tender, sympa- 
thizing, and benevolent in the heart of man. Speaking for my- 
self, if I had no other evidence that the Bible was fabulous, than 
the sacrifice I must make to believe it to be true, that alone would 
be sufficient to determine my choice. 

But in addition to all the moral evidence against the Bible, I 
will in the progress of this work, produce such other evidence, as 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 71 

even a priest cannot deny ; and show, from that evidence, that 
the Bible is not entitled to credit, as being the word of God. 

But, before I proceed to this examination, I will show wherein 
the Bible differs from all other ancient writings with respect to the 
nature of the evidence necessary to establish its authenticity ; and 
this is the more proper to be done, because the advocates of the 
Bible, in their answers to the former part of the Age of Reason, 
undertake to say, and they put some stress thereon, that the au- 
thenticity of the Bible is as well established as that of any other 
ancient book ; as if our belief of the one could become any rule 
for our belief of the other. 

I know, however, but of one ancient book that authoritatively 
challenges universal consent and belief, and 'that is, Euclid's 
Elements of Geometry ;* and the reason is, because it is a book of 
self-evident demonstration, entirely independent of its author, and 
of every thing relating to time, place and circumstance. The mat- 
ters contained in that book would have the same authority they 
now have, had they been written by any other person, or had the 
work been anonymous, or had the author never been known ; for 
the identical certainty of who was the author, makes no part of our 
belief of the matters contained in the book. But it is quite other- 
with with respect to the books ascribed to Moses, to Joshua, to 
Samuel, &c. those are books of testimony, and they testify of things 
naturally incredible ; and, therefore, the whole of our belief, as to 
the authenticity of those books, rest, in the first place, upon the 
certainty that they were written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel ; 
secondly, upon the credit we give to their testimony. We may 
believe the first, that is, we may believe the certainty of the 
authorship, and yet not the testimony ; in the same manner that 
we may believe that a certain person gave evidence upon a case 
and yet not believe the evidence that he gave. But if it should be 
found, that the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, 
were not written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, and every part of 
the authority and authenticity of those books is £one at once ; for 
there can be no such thing as forged or invented testimony ; 
neither can there be anonymous testimony, more especially as to 
things naturally incredible ; such as that of talking with God face 

* Euclid, according to chronological history, lived three hundred years be- 
fore Christ, and about one hundred before Archimedes ; he was of the city 
of Alexandria, in Egypt. 



72 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II. 

to face, or that of the sun and moon standing still at the command 
of a man. The greatest part of the other ancient books are works 
of genius ; of which kind are those ascribed to Homer, to Plato, 
to Aristotle, to Demosthenes, to Cicero, &c. Here again the 
author is not essential in the credit we give to any of those works ; 
for, as works of genius, they would have the same merit they 
have now, were they anonymous. Nobody believes the Trojan 
story, as related by Homer, to be true — for it is the poet only that 
is admired : and the merit of the poet will remain, though the 
story be fabulous. But if we disbelieve the matters related by 
the Bible authors (Moses for instance) as we disbelieve the things 
related by Homer, there remains nothing of Moses in our estima- 
tion, but an impostor. As to the ancient historians, from Hero- 
dotus to Tacitus, we credit them as far as they relate things pro- 
bable and credible, and no further : for if we do, we must believe 
the two miracles which Tacitus relates were performed by Ves- 
pasian, that of curing a lame man, and a blind man, in just the 
same manner as the same things are told of Jesus Christ by his 
historians. We must also believe the miracles cited by Josephus, 
that of the sea of Pamphilia opening to let Alexander and his 
army pass, as is related of the Red Sea in Exodus. These mi- 
racles are quite as well authenticated as the Bible miracles, and 
yet we do not believe them ; consequently the degree of evidence 
necessary to establish our belief of things naturally incredible, 
whether in the Bible or elsewhere, is far greater than that which 
obtains our belief to natural and probable things ; and, therefore, 
the advocates for the Bible have no claim to our belief of the 
Bible, because that we believe things stated in other ancient 
writings ; since we believe the things stated in these writings no 
further than they are probable and credible, or because they are 
self-evident, like Euclid ; or admire them because they are ele- 
gant, like Homer ; or approve them because they are sedate, like 
Plato ; or judicious, like Aristotle. 

Having premised these things, I proceed to examine the authen- 
ticity of the Bible, and I begin with what are called the five books 
of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deutero- 
nomy. My intention is to show that those books are spurious, 
and that Moses is not the author of them ; and still further, that 
they were not written in the time of Moses, nor till several hun- 
dred years afterwards ; that they are no other than an attempted 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 7.3 

history of the life of Moses, and of the times in which he is said to 
have lived, and also of the times prior thereto, written by some 
very ignorant and stupid pretenders to authorship, several hundred 
years after the death of Moses, as men now write histories of 
things that happened, or are supposed to have happened, several 
hundred or several thousand years ago. 

The evidence that I shall produce in this case is from the books 
themselves ; and I will confine my self to this evidence only. — 
Where I to refer for proof to any of the ancient authors, whom 
the advocates of the Bible call profane authors, they would con- 
trovert that authority, as I controvert theirs ; I will therefore meet 
them on their own ground, and oppose them with their own 
weapon, the Bible. 

In the first place, there is no affirmative evidence that Moses is 
the author of those books ; and that he is the author, is altogether 
an unfounded opinion, got abroad nobody knows how. The style 
and manner in which those books are written, give no room to be- 
lieve, or even to suppose, they were written by Moses ; for it is alto- 
gether the style and manner of another person speaking of Moses. 
In Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, (for every thing in Genesis is 
prior to the times of Moses and not the least allusion is made to 
him therein,) the whole, I say, of these books is in the third person ; 
it is always, the Lord said unto Moses, or Moses said unto the 
Lord : or Moses said unto the %) e ople, or the people said unto 
Moses ; and this is the style and manner that historians use, in 
speaking of the person whose lives and actions they are writing. 
It may be said that a man may speak of himself in the third per- 
son ; and, therefore, it may be supposed that Moses did ; but 
supposition proves nothing ; and if the advocates for the belief 
that Moses wrote those books himself, have nothing better to 
advance than supposition, they may as well be silent. 

But granting the grammatical right, that Moses might speak of 
himself in the third person, because any man might speak of him- 
self in that manner, it cannot be admitted as a fact in those books, 
that it is Moses who speaks, without rendering Moses truly ridicu- 
lous and absurd : — for example, Numbers, chap, xii. ver. 3. 
" Now the man Moses was very meek, above all men which were 011 
the face of the earth." If Moses said this of himself, instead of 
being the meekest of men, he was one of the most vain and arro- 
gant of coxcombs ; and the advocates for those books may now 

10 



74 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II. 

take which side they please, for both sides are against them ; if 
Moses was not the author, the books are without authority ; and if 
he was the author, the author was without credit, because to boast 
of meekness, is the reverse of meekness, and is a lie in sentiment. 

In Deuteronomy, the style and manner of writing marks more 
evidently than in the former books, that Moses is not the writer. 
The manner here used is dramatical : the writer opens the subject 
by a short introductory discourse, and then introduces Moses in 
the act of speaking, and when he has made Moses finish his har- 
rangue, he (the writer) resumes his own part, and speaks till he 
brings Moses forward again, and at last closes the scene with an 
account of the death, funeral, and character of Moses. 

This interchange of speakers occurs four times in this book : 
from the first verse of the first chapter, to the end of the fifth verse, 
it is the writer who speaks ; he then introduces Moses as in the 
act of making his harrangue, and this continues to the end of the 
40th verse of the fourth chapter ; here the writer drops Moses„ 
and speaks historically of what was done in consequence of what 
Moses, when living, is supposed to have said, and which the 
writer has dramatically rehearsed. 

The writer opens the subject again in the first verse of the fifth 
chapter, though it is only by saying, that Moses called the people 
of Israel together ; he then introduces Moses as before, and con- 
tinues him, as in the act of speaking, to the end of the 28th chap- 
ter. He does the same thing at the beginning of the 27th chap- 
ter ; and continues Moses, as in the act of speaking, to the end 
of the 28th chapter. At the 29th chapter the writer speaks 
again through the whole of the first verse, and the first line 
of the second verse, where he introduces Moses for the last time, 
and continues him, as in the act of speaking, to the end of the 33d 
chapter. 

The writer having now finished the rehearsal on the part of 
Moses, comes forward, and speaks through the whole of the last 
chapter ; he begins by telling the reader, that Moses went up to 
the top of Pisgah ; that he saw from thence the land which (the 
writer says) had been promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ; 
that he, Moses, died there, in the land of Moab, but that no man 
knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day, that is, unto the time in 
Avhich the writer lived, who wrote the book of Deuteronomy. The 
writer then tells us, that Moses was 110 years of age when he 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 75 

died — that his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated ; 
and he concludes by saying, that there arose not a prophet since 
in Israel like unto Moses, whom, says this anonymous writer, the 
Lord knew face to face. 

Having thus shown, as far as grammatical evidence applies, that 
Moses was not the writer of those books, I will, after making a 
few observations on the inconsistencies of the writer of the book 
of Deuteronomy, proceed to show, from the historical and chro- 
nological evidence contained in those books, that Moses, icas not % 
because he could not be, the writer of them ; and consequently, 
that there is no authority for believing, that the inhuman and 
horrid butcheries of men, women, and children, told in those 
books, were done, as those books say they were, at the command 
of God. It is a duty incumbent on every true Deist, that he 
vindicate the moral justice of God against the calumnies of the 
Bible. 

The writer of the book of Deuteronomy, whoever he was, (for it 
is an anonymous work,) is obsure, and also in contradiction with 
himself, in the account he has given of Moses. 

After telling that Moses went to the top of Pisgah (and it does 
not appear from any account that he ever came down again) he 
tells us, that Moses died there in the land of Moab, and that he 
buried him in a valley in the land of Moab ; but as there is no 
antecedent to the pronoun he, there is no knowing who lie was 
that did bury him. If the w T riter meant that he (God) buried him, 
how should he (the writer) know it! or why should we (the 
readers) believe him ? since we know not who the writer was that 
tells us so, for certainly Moses could not himself tell where he 
was buried. 

The writer also tells us, that no man knoweth where the sepulchre 
of Moses is unto this day, meaning the time in which this writer 
lived ; how then should he know that Moses was buried in a 
valley in the land of Moab 1 for as the writer lived long after the 
time of Moses, as is evident from his using the expression of unto 
this day, meaning a great length of time after the death of Moses, 
he certainly was not at his funeral ; and on the other hand, it is 
impossible that Moses himself could say, that no man hioweth 
where th e sepulchre is unto this day. To make Moses the speaker, 
would be an improvement on the play of a child that hides himself 
and cries nobody can find me ; nobody can find Moses. 



76 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II. 

This writer has no where told us how he came by the speeches 
which he has put into the mouth of Moses to speak, and, therefore, 
we have a right to conclude, that he either composed them himself, 
or wrote them from oral tradition. One or the other of these is 
the more probable, since he has given, in the fifth chapter, a table 
of commandments, in which that called the fourth commandment 
is different from the fourth commandment in the twentieth chapter 
of Exodus. In that of Exodus, the reason given for keeping the 
seventh day is, " because (says the commandment) God made 
the heavens and the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh 
but in that of Deuteronomy, the reason given is, that it was the 
day on which the children of Israel came out of Egypt, and 
therefore, says this commandment, the Lord thy God commanded 
thee to keep the sabbath-day. This makes no mention of the 
creation, nor that of the coming out of Egypt. There are also 
many things given as laws of Moses in this book, that are not to 
be found in any of the other books ; among which is that inhuman 
and brutal law, chap. xxi. ver. 18, 19, 20, 21, which authorizes 
parents, the father and the mother, to bring their own children to 
have them stoned to death for what it is pleased to call stubborn- 
ness. But priests have always been fond of preaching up Deu- 
teronomy, for Deuteronomy preaches up tythes ; and it is from 
this book, chap. xxv. ver. 4, they have taken the phrase, and 
applied it to tything, that thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he 
treadeth out the corn ; and that this might not escape observation, 
they have noted it in the table of contents at the head of the chap- 
ter, though it is only a single verse of less than two lines. O ! 
priests ! priests ! ye are willing to be compared to an ox, for the 
sake of tythes. Though it is impossible for us to know identically 
who the writer of Deuteronomy was, it is not difficult to discover 
him professionally, that he was some Jewish priest, who lived, as 
I shall show in the course of this work, at least three hundred and 
fifty years, after the time of Moses. 

I come now to speak of the historical and chronological 
evidence. The chronology that I shall use is the Bible chro- 
nology ; for I mean not to go out of the Bible for evidence of any 
thing, but to make the Bible itself prove historically and chronolo- 
gically, that Moses is not the author of the books ascribed to him. 
It is, therefore, proper that I inform the reader, (such an one at 
least as may not have the opportunity of knowing it,) that in the 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 77 

larger Bibles, and also in some smaller ones, there is a series 01 
chronology printed in the margin of every page, for the purpose ot 
showing how long the historical matters stated in each page hap- 
pened, or are supposed to have happened, before Christ, and, con- 
sequently, the distance of time between one historical circum- 
stance and another. 

I begin with the book of Genesis. In the 14th chapter of Gene- 
sis, the writer gives an account of Lot being taken prisoner in a 
battle between the four kings against five, and carried off ; and 
that when the account of Lot being taken, came to Abraham, he 
armed all his household, and marched to rescue Lot from the 
captors ; and that he pursued them unto Dan. (ver. 14.) 

To show in what manner this expression of pursuing them unto 
Dan applies to the case in question, I will refer to two circum- 
stances, the one in America, the other in France. The city 
now called New-York, in America, was originally New Amster- 
dam ; and the town in France, lately called Havre Marat, was 
before called Havre de Grace. New Amsterdam was changed to 
New-York in the year 1664 ; Havre de Grace to Havre Marat in 
1793. Should, therefore, any writing be found, though without 
date, in which the name of New- York should be mentioned, it 
would be certain evidence that such a writing could not have been 
written before, and must have been written after New Amster- 
dam was changed to New-York, and consequently not till after 
the year 1664, or at least during the course of that year. And, in 
like manner, any dateless writing, with the name of Havre Marat, 
would be certain evidence that such a writing must have been 
written after Havre de Grace became Havre Marat, and conse- 
quently not till after the year 1793, or at least during the course 
of that year. 

I now come to the application of those cases, and to show that 
there was no such place as Dan, till many years after the death of 
Moses ; and consequently, that Moses could not be the writer of 
I the book of Genesis, where this account of pursuing them unto 
Dan is given. 

The place that is called Dan in the Bible was originally a town 
of the Gentiles, called Laish ; and when the tribe of Dan seized 
upon this town, they changed its name to Dan, in commemoration 
of Dan, who was the father of that tribe, and the great grandson 
of Abraham. 



78 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II. 

To establish this in proof, it is necessary to refer from Genesis 
to the 18th chapter of the book called the book of Judges. It is 
there said (ver. 27) that they (the Danites) come unto Laish to a 
people that were quiet and secure, and they smote them with the 
edge of the sword (the Bible is filled with murder) and burned the 
city with fire ; and they built a city, (ver. 28,) and dwelt therein, 
and they called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan, 
their father, howbeit the name of the city was Laish at the first. 

This account of the Danites taking possession of Laish and 
changing it to Dan, is placed in the book of Judges immediately 
after the death of Sampson. The death of Sampson is said to 
have happened 1120 years before Christ, and that of Moses 1451 
before Christ ; and, therefore, according to the historical arrange- 
ment, the place was not called Dan till 331 years after the death 
of Moses. 

There is a striking confusion between the historical and the 
chronological arrangement in the Book of Judges. The five 
last chapters, as they stand in the book, 17, IS, 19, 20, 21, are 
put chronologically before all the preceding chapters ; they 
are made to be 28 years before the 16th chapter, 266 before 
the 15th, 245 before the 13th, 195 before the 9th, 90 before the 
4th, and 15 years before the first chapter. This shows the un- 
certain and fabulous state of the Bible. According to the chrono- 
logical arrangement, the taking of Laish, and giving it the name 
of Dan, is made to be 20 years after the death of Joshua, who was 
the successor of Moses ; and by the historical order as it stands 
in the book, it is made to be 306 years after the death of Joshua, 
and 331 after that of Moses ; but they both exclude Moses from 
being the writer of Genesis, because, according to either of the 
statements, no such place as Dan existed in the time of Moses ; 
and, therefore, the writer of Genesis must have been some person 
who lived after the town of Laish had the name of Dan ; and who 
that person was, nobody knows ; and consequently the book of 
Genesis is anonymous and without authority. 

I proceed now to state another point of historical and chrono- 
logical evidence, and to show therefrom, as in the preceding case, 
that Moses is not the author of the book of Genesis. 

In the 36th chapter of Genesis there is given a genealogy of the 
sons and descendents of Esau, who are called Edomites, and also 
a list, by name, of the kings of Edom ; in enumerating of which, 



PART II. j THE AGE OF REASON. 79 

it is said, verse 31, " And these are the kings that reigned in 
Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel." 

Now, were any dateless writings to be found, in which, speak- 
ing of any past events, the writer should say, these things happen- 
ed before there was any Congress in America, or before there 
was any Convention in France, it would be evidence that such 
writings could not have been written before, and could only be 
written after there was a Congress in America, or a Convention in 
France, as the case might be ; and, consequently, that it could not 
be written by any person who died before there was a Congress 
in the one country, or a Convention in the other. 

Nothing i3 more frequent, as well in history as in conversation, 
than to refer to a fact in the room of a date : it is most natural so 
to do, because a fact fixes itself in the memory better than a 
date ; secondly, because the fact includes the date, and serves to 
excite two ideas at once ; and this manner of speaking by circum- 
stances implies as positively that the fact alluded to is past, as if 
it was so expressed. When a person speaking upon any matter, 
says, it was before I was married, or before my son was born, or 
before I went to America, or before I went to France, it is abso- 
lutely understood, and intended to be understood, that he has been 
married, that he has had a son, that he has been in America, or 
been in France. Language does not admit of using this mode of 
expression in any other sense ; and whenever such an expression 
is found any where, it can only be understood in the sense in 
which only it could have been used. 

The passage, therefore, that I have quoted — " that these are the 
kings that reigned in Edom, before there reigned any king over 
the children of Israel," could only have been written after the 
first king began to reign over them ; and, consequently, that the 
book of Genesis so far from having been written by Moses, could 
not have been written till the time of Saul at least. This is the 
positive sense of the passage ; but the expression, any king, im- 
plies more kings than one, at least it implies two, and this will 
carry it to the time of David ; and, if taken in a general sense, 
it carries itself through all the time of the Jewish monarchy. 

Had we met with this verse in any part of the Bible that pro- 
fessed to have been written after kings began to reign in Israel, it 
would have been impossible not to have seen the application of it. 
It happens then that this is the case ; the two books of Chro- 



80 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II. 

nicies, which gave a history of all the kings of Israel, are pro- 
fessedly, as well as in fact, written after the Jewish monarchy be- 
gan; and this verse that I have quoted, and all the remaining 
verses of the 36th chapter of Genesis, are, word for word, in the 
first chapter of Chronicles, beginning at the 43d verse. 

It was with consistency that the writer of the Chronicles could 
say, as he has said, 1st Chron. chap. i. ver. 43, These are the kings 
that reigned in Edom, before there reigned any king over the 
children of Israel, because he was going to give, and has given a 
list of the kings that had reigned in Israel ; but as it is impossible 
that the same expression could have been used before that period, 
it is as certain as any thing can be proved from historical language, 
that this part of Genesis is taken from Chronicles, and that Ge- 
nesis is not so old as Chronicles, and probably not so old as the 
book of Homer, or as iEsop's Fables, admitting Homer to have 
been, as the tables of chronology state, contemporary with David 
or Solomon, and iEsop to have lived about the end of the 
Jewish monarchy. 

Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, 
on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has 
stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous 
book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or 
of downright lies. The story of Eve and the serpent, and of 
Noah and his ark, drops to a level with the Arabian Tales, with- 
out the merit of being entertaining ; and the account of men living 
to eight and nine hundred years becomes as fabulous as the im- 
mortality of the giants of the Mythology. 

Besides, the character of Moses, as stated in the Bible, is the 
most horrid that can be imagined. If those accounts be true, he 
was the wretch that first began and carried on wars on the 
score, or on the pretence of religion ; and under that mask, or 
that infatuation, committed the most unexampled atrocities that 
are to be found in the history of any nation, of which I will state 
only one instance. 

When the Jewish army returned from one of their murdering 
and plundering excursions, the account goes on as follows, 
Numbers, chap. xxxi. ver. 13. 

" And Moses, and Eleazer the priest, and all the princes of the 
congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp ; and 
Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 81 

over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from 
the battle ; and Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the 
women alive ? behold, these caused the children of Israel, through 
the council of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in 
the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congrega- 
tion of the Lord. Now therefore, kill every male among the lit- 
tle ones, and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying 
with him ; but all the woman children that have not known a man 
by lying with him keep alive for yourselves. 

Among the detestable villains that in any period of the world 
have disgraced the name of man, it is impossible to find a greater 
than Moses, if this account be true. Here is an order to butcher 
the boys, to massacre the mothers, and debauch the daughters. 

Let any mother put herself in the situation of those mothers ; 
one child murdered, another destined to violation, and herself in 
the hands of an executioner : let any daughter put herself in the 
situation of those daughters, destined as a prey to the murderers 
of a mother and a brother, and what will be their feelings ? It is 
x in vain that we attempt to impose upon nature, for nature will 
have her course, and the religion that tortures all her social ties is 
a false religion. 

After this detestable order, follows an account of the plunder 
taken, and the manner of dividing it ; and here it is that the pro- 
phaneness of priestly hypocrisy increases the catalogue of crimes. 
Verse 37, 4< And the Lord's tribute of the sheep was six hundred 
and three score and fifteen ; and the beeves was thirty and six 
thousand, of which the Lord's tribute was three score and twelve ; 
and the asses were thirty thousand, of which the Lord's tribute 
was three-score and one ; and the persons were thirty thousand, 
of which the Lord's tribute was thirty and two." In short, the 
matters contained in this chapter, as well as in many other parts 
of the Bible, are too horrid for humanity to read, or for decency 
to hear ; for it appears, from the 35th verse of this chapter, that 
the number of women-children consigned to debauchery by the 
order of Moses was thirty-two thousand. 

People in general know not what wickedness there is in this 
pretended word of God. Brought up in habits of superstition, 
they take it for granted that the Bible is true, and that it is good ; 
they permit themselves not to doubt of it, and they carry the ideas 
they form of the benevolence of the Almighty to the book whicfe 

11 



82 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II. 

they have been taught to believe was written by his authority. 
Good heavens ! it is quite another thing ; it is a book of lies, 
wickedness, and blasphemy ; for what can be greater blasphemy, 
than to ascribe the wickedness of man to the orders of the Al- 
mighty ? 

But to return to my subject, that of showing that Moses is not 
the author of the books ascribed to him, and that the Bible is spu- 
rious. The two instances I have already given would be suffi- 
cient, without any additional evidence, to invalidate the authen- 
ticity of any book that pretended to be four or five hundred years 
more ancient than the matters it speaks of, or refers to, as facts ; 
for in the case of pursuing them unto Dan, and of the kings that 
reigned over the children of Israel, not even the flimsy pretence 
of prophesy can be pleaded. The expressions are in the preter 
tense, and it would be downright idiotism to say that a man could 
prophesy in the preter tense. 

But there are many other passages scattered throughout those 
books that unite in the same point of evidence. It is said in 
Exodus, (another of the books ascribed to Moses,) chap. xvi. verse 
34, " And the children of Israel did eat manna until they came to 
a land inhabited ; they did eat manna until they came unto the 
borders of the land of Canaan. 

Whether the children of Israel ate manna or not, or what manna 
was, or whether it was any thing more than a kind of fungus or 
small mushroom, or other vegetable substance common to that 
part of the country, makes nothing to my argument ; all that I 
mean to show is, that it is not Moses that could write this account, 
because the account -extends itself beyond the life and time of 
Moses. Moses, according to the Bible, (but it is such a book of 
lies and contradictions there is no knowing which part to believe, 
or whether any,) dies in the wilderness, and never came upon the 
borders of the land of Canaan ; and, consequently, it could not 
be he that said what the children of Israel did, or what they ate 
when they came there. This account of eating manna, which 
they tell us was written by Moses, extends itself to the time of 
Joshua, the successor of Moses, as appears by the account given 
in the book of Joshua, after the children of Israel had passed the 
river Jordan, and came unto the borders of the land of Canaan, 
Joshua, chap. v. ver. 12. " Jlnd the manna ceased on the morrow, 
after they had eaten of the old com of the land ; neither had the 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 83 

children of Israel manna any more, but they did eat of the fruit 
of the land of Canaan that year." 

But a more remarkable instance than this occurs in Deuterono- 
my ; which, while it shov/s that Moses could not be the writer of 
that book, shows also the fabulous notions that prevailed at that 
time about giants. In the third chapter of Deuteronomy, among 
the conquests said to be made by Moses, is an account of the 
taking of Og, king of Bashan, ver. 11. " For only Og, king of 
Bashan, remained of the race of giants ; behold, his bedstead was 
a bedstead of iron ; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Am- 
nion 1 nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the 
breadth of it, after the cubit of a man." A cubit is 1 foot 9 888- 
lOQOths inches ; the length, therefore, of the bed was 16 feet 4 
inches, and the breadth 7 feet 4 inches ; thus much for this giant's 
bed. Now for the historical part, which, though the evidence is 
not so direct and positive, as in the former cases, it is nevertheless 
very presumable and corroborating evidence, and is better than 
the best evidence on the contrary side. 

The writer, by way of proving the existence of this giant, refers 
to his bed, as an ancient relic, and says, is it not in Rabbath (or 
Rabbah) of the children of Ammon 1 meaning that it is ; for such 
is frequently the Bible method of affirming a thing. But it could 
not be Moses that said this, because Moses could know nothing 
about Rabbah, nor of what was in it. Rabbah was not a city be- 
longing to this giant king, nor was it one of the cities that Moses 
took. The knowledge, therefore, that this bed was at Rabbah, 
and of the particulars of its dimensions, must be referred to the 
time when Rabbah was taken, and this was not till four hundred 
years after the death of Moses ; for which, see 2 Sam. chap. xii. 
ver. 26. " And Joab (David's general) fought against Rabbah 
of the children of Amnion, and took the royal city." 

As I am not undertaking to point out all the contradictions in 
time, place and circumstance, that abound in the books ascribed to 
Moses, and which prove to a demonstration that those books could 
not be written by Moses, nor in the time of Moses : I proceed to 
the book of Joshua, and to show that Joshua is not the author of 
that book, and that it is anonymous and without authority. The 
evidence I shall produce is contained in the book itself ; I will 
not go out of the Bible for proof against the supposed authentici- 
ty of the Bible. False testimony is always good against itself. 



84 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART llm 

Joshua, according to the first chapter of Joshua, was the imme- 
diate successor of Moses ; he was, moreover, a military man,which 
Moses was not, and he continued as chief of the people of Israel 
25 years ; that is, from the time that Moses died, which, according 
to the Bible chronology, was 1451 years before Christ, until 1426 
years before Christ, when, according to the same chronology, 
Joshua died. If, therefore, we find in this book, said to have been 
written by Joshua, reference to facts done after the death of Josh- 
ua, it is evidence that Joshua could not be the author ; and also 
that the book could not have been written till after the time of the 
latest fact which it records. As to the character of the book, it is 
horrid ; it is a military history of rapine anr- murder, as savage 
and brutal as those recorded of his predece sor in villany and 
hypocrisy, Moses ; and the blasphemy consists, as in the former 
books, in ascribing those deeds to the order of the Almighty. 

In the first place, the book of Joshua, as is the case in the pre- 
ceding books, is written in the third person ; it is the historian of 
Joshua that speaks, for it would have been absurd and vain-glorious 
that Joshua should say of himself, as is said of him in the last 
verse of the sixth chapter, that " his fame was noised throughout 
all the country." I now come more immediately to the proof. 

In the 24th chapter, ver. 31, it is said, " that Israel served the 
Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that over- 
lived Joshua." Now, in the name of common sense, can it be Josh- 
ua that relates what people had done after he was dead 1 This ac- 
count must not only have been written by some historian that 
lived after J oshua, but that lived also after the elders that out-lived 
Joshua. 

There are several passages of a general meaning with respect 
to time, scattered throughout the book of Joshua, that carries the 
time in which the book was written to a distance from the time of 
Joshua, but without marking by exclusion any particular time, as 
in the passage above quoted. In that passage, the time that in- 
tervened between the death of Joshua and the death of the elders 
is excluded descriptively and absolutely, and the evidence sub- 
stantiates that the book could not have been written till after the 
death of the last. 

But though the passages to which I allude, and which I am going 
to quote, do not designate any particular time by exclusion, they 
imply a time far more distant from the days of Joshua, than is 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON, 85 

contained between the death of Joshua and the death of the elders. 
— Such is the passage, chap. x. ver. 14 ; where, after giving an 
account that the sun stood still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the 
valley of Ajalon, at the command of Joshua, (a tale only fit to 
amuse children) the passage says, " And there was no day like 
that, before it, nor after it, that the Lord hearkened to the voice of 
a man." 

This tale of the sun standing still upon Mount Gibeon, and the 
moon in the valley of Ajalon, is one of those fables that detects itself. 
Such a circumstance could not have happened without being known 
all over the world. One half would have wondered why the sun 
did not rise, and the other why it did not set ; and the tradition of 
it would be universal, whereas there is not a nation in the world 
that knows any thing about it. But why must the moon stand 
still ? What occasion could there be for moon-light in the day- 
time, and that too while the sun shined ? Asa poetical figure, the 
whole is well enough ; it is akin to that in the song of Deborah 
and Baruk, The stars in their courses fought against Sisera ; but 
it is inferior to the figurative declaration of Mahomet, to the per- 
sons who came to expostulate with him on his going on, Wert 
thou, said he, to come to me with the sun in thy right hand and the 
moon in thy left, it should not alter my career. For Joshua to 
have exceeded Mahomet, he should have put the sun and moon 
one in each pocket, and carried them as Guy Faux carried his 
dark lanthorn, and taken them out to shine as he might happen to 
want them. 

The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that 
it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sub- 
lime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes 
the sublime again ; the account, however, abstracted from the 
poetical fancy, shows the ignorance of Joshua, for he should have 
commanded the earth to have stood still. 

The time implied by the expression after it, that is, after that 
day, being put in comparison with all the time that passed before it, 
must, in order to give any expressive signification to the passage, 
mean a great length of time : — for example, it would have been 
ridiculous to have said so the next day, or the next week, or the 
next month, or the next year ; to give, therefore, meaning to the 
passage, comparative with the wonder it relates, and the prior time 
it alludes to, it must mean centuries of years ; less, however, than 



8© THE AGE OP REASON". [rART II* 

one would be trifling, and less than two would be barely admis- 
sible. 

A distant, but general time, is also expressed in the 8th chap- 
ter ; where, after giving an account of the taking the city of Ai, it 
is said, ver. 28th, " And Joshua burned Ai, and made it an heap 
for ever, a desolation unto this day ;" and again, ver. 29, where, 
speaking of the king of Ai, whom Joshua had hanged, and buried at 
the entering of the gate, it is said, " And he raised thereon a great 
heap of stones, which remaineth unto this day," that is, unto the 
day or time in which the writer of the book of Joshua lived. And 
again, in the 10th chapter, where, after speaking of the five kings 
whom Joshua had hanged on five trees, and then thrown in a 
cave, it is said, " And he laid great stones on the cave's mouth, 
which remain unto this very day." 

In enumerating the several exploits of Joshua, and of the tribes, 
and of the places which they conquered or attempted, it is said, 
c. xv. ver. 63, " As for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 
the children of Judah could not drive them out ; but the Jebu- 
sites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day" 
The question upon this passage is, at what time did the Jebusites 
and the children of Judah dwell together at Jerusalem ? As 
this matter occurs again in the first chapter of Judges, I shall 
reserve my observations till I come to that part. 

Having thus shown from the book of Joshua itself, without 
any auxiliary evidence whatever, that Joshua is not the author 
of that book, and that it is anonymous, and consequently with- 
out authority. I proceed, as before-mentioned, to the book of 
Judges. 

The book of Judges is anonymous on the face of it ; and, there- 
fore, even the pretence is wanting to call it the word of God ; 
it has not so much as a nominal voucher ; it is altogether 
fatherless. 

This book begins with the same expression as the book of 
Joshua. That of Joshua begins, chap. i. ver 1, Now after the 
death of Moses, <^c. and this of Judges begins, Noiv after the 
death of Joshua, §c. This, and the similarity of style between the 
two books, indicate that they are the work of the same author, but 
who he was, is altogether unknown : the only point that the book 
proves is, that the author lived long after the time of Joshua ; for 
though it begins as if it followed immediately after his death, the 



PART THE AGE OF REASON. 87 

second chapter is an epitome or abstract of the whole book, 
which, according to the Bible chronology, extends its history 
through a space of 306 years ; that is, from the death of Joshua, 
1426 years before Christ, to the death of Sampson, 1120 years 
before Christ, and only 25 years before Saul went to seek his 
father's asses, and was made king. But there is good reason 
to believe, that it was not written till the time of David, at 
least, and that the book of Joshua was not written before the same 
time. 

In the first chapter of Judges, the writer, after announcing the 
death of Joshua, proceeds to tell what happened between the chil- 
dren of Judah and the native inhabitants of the land of Canaan. 
In this statement, the writer, having abruptly mentioned Jerusa- 
lem in the 7th verse, says immediately after, in the 8th verse, by 
way of explanation, i4 Now the children of Judah had fought 
against Jerusalem, and taken it;" consequently this book could 
not have been written before Jerusalem had been taken. The 
reader will recollect the quotation I have just before made from 
the 15th chapter of Joshua, ver. 63, where it is said, that the Jehu- 
sites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem at this day ; 
meaning the time when the book of Joshua was written. 

The evidence I have already produced, to prove that the books 
I have hitherto treated of were not written by the persons to whom 
they are ascribed, nor till many years after their death, if such per- 
sons ever lived, is already so abundant, that I can afford to admit 
this passage with less weight than I am entitled to draw from it. 
For the case is, that so far as the Bible can be credited as an 
history, the city of Jerusalem was not taken till the time of David ; 
and, consequently, that the books of Joshua, and of Judges, were 
not written till after the commencement of the reign of David, 
which was 370 years after the death of Joshua. 

The name of the city, that was afterwards called Jerusalem, 
was originally Jebus or Jebusi, and was the capital of the Jebu- 
sites. The account of David's taking this city is given in 2 
Samuel, chap. v. ver. 4, &c; also in 1 chron. chap. xiv. ver. 4, 
&c. There is no mention in any part of the Bible that it was 
ever taken before, nor any account that favours such an opinion. 
It is not said, either in Samuel or in Chronicles, that they utterly 
destroyed men, women, and children ; that they left not a soul to 
breathe, as is said of their other conquests ; and the silence here 



88 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART It. 

observed implies that it was taken by capitulation, and that the 
Jebusites, the native inhabitants, continued to live in the place 
after it was taken. The account, therefore, given in Joshua, that 
the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem at this 
day, corresponds to no other time than after the taking the city by 
David. 

Having now shown that every book in the Bible, from Genesis 
to Judges, is without authenticity, I come to the book of Ruth, an 
idle, bungling story, foolishly told, nobody knows by whom, about 
a strolling country girl creeping slyly to bed to her cousin Boaz. 
Pretty stuff indeed to be called the word of God ! It is, however, 
one of the best books in the Bible* for it is free from murder and 
rapine. 

I come next to the two books of Samuel, and to show that those 
books were not written by Samuel, nor till a great length of time 
after the death of Samuel : and that they are, like all the former 
books, anonymous and without authority. 

To be convinced that these books have been written much later 
than the time of Samuel, and, consequently, not by him, it is only 
necessary to read the account which the writer gives of Saul going 
to seek his father's asses, and of his interview with Samuel, of 
whom Saul went to inquire about those lost asses, as foolish people 
now-a-days go to a conjuror to inquire after lost things. 

The writer, in relating this story of Saul, Samuel, and the asses, 
does not tell it as a thing that had just then happened, but as an 
ancient story in the time this writer lived; for he tells it in the 
language or terms used at the time that Samuel lived, which 
obliges the writer to explain the story in the terms or language 
used in the time the writer lived. 

Samuel, in the account given of him, in the first of those books, 
chap. ix. is called the seer; and it is by this term that Saul in- 
quires after him, ver. 11, " And as they (Saul and his servant) 
went up the hill to the city, they found young maidens going out 
to draw water ; and they said unto them, Is the seer here ?" Saul 
then went according to the direction of these maidens, and met 
Samuel without knowing him, and said unto him, ver. 18, " Tell 
me, I pray thee, where the seer's house is? and Samuel answered 
Saul, and said, / am the seer." 

As the writer of the book of Samuel relates these questions and 
answers, in the language or manner of speaking used in the time 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 89 

they are said to have been spoken ; and as that manner of speak- 
ing was out of use when this author wrote, he found it necessary, 
in order to make the story understood, to explain the terms in 
which these questions and answers are spoken ; and he does this 
in the 9th verse, where he says, " before-time, in Israel, when a 
man went to inquire of God, thus he spake, Come, let us go to 
the seer ; for he that is now called a prophet, was before-time 
called a seer." This proves, as I have before said, that this story 
of Saul, Samuel, and the asses, was an ancient story at the time 
the book of Samuel was written, and consequently that Samuel 
did not write it, and that that book is without authenticity. 

But if we go further into those books, the evidence is still more 
positive that Samuel is not the writer of them ; for they relate 
things that did not happen till several years after the death of 
Samuel. Samuel died before Saul ; for the 1st Samuel, chap, 
xxviii. tells, that Saul and the witch of Endor conjured Samuel up 
after he was dead ; yet the history of the matters contained in 
those books is extended through the remaining part of Saul's life, 
and to the latter end of the life of David, who succeeded Saul. 
The account of the death and burial of Samuel (a thing which he 
could not write himself) is related in the 25th chapter of the first 
book of Samuel ; and the chronology affixed to this chapter makes 
this to be 1060 years before Christ ; yet the history of this first 
book is brought down to 1056 years before Christ ; that is, to 
the death of Saul, which was not till four years after the death of 
Samuel. 

The second book of Samuel begins with an account of things 
that did not happen till four years after Samuel was dead ; for it 
begins with the reign of David, who succeeded Saul> and it goes 
on to the end of David's reign, which was forty-three years after 
the death of Samuel ; and, therefore, the books are in themselves 
positive evidence that they were not written by Samuel. 

I have now gone through all the books in the first part of the 
Bible, to which the names of persons are affixed, as being the 
authors of those books, and which the church, styling itself the 
Christian church, have imposed upon the world as the writings of 
Moses, Joshua, and Samuel ; and I have detected and proved the 
falsehood of this imposition. And now, ye priests, of every des- 
cription, who have preached and written against the former part 
of the Age of Reason? what have ye to say 1 Will ye, with all 

12 



90 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II. 

this mass of evidence against you, and staring you in the face, 
still have the assurance to march into your pulpits, and continue 
to impose these books on your congregations* as the works of 
inspired penmen, and the word of God, when it is as evident as de- 
monstration can make truth appear* that the persons who, ye say$ 
are the authors, are not the authors, and that ye know not who the 
authors are. What shadow of pretence have ye now to produce* 
for continuing the blasphemous fraud 1 What have ye still to 
offer against the pure and moral religion of Deism, in support of 
your system of falsehood, idolatry, and pretended revelation ? Had 
the cruel and murderous orders, with which the Bible is filled, 
and the numberless torturing executions of men, women, and 
children, in consequence of those orders, been ascribed to some 
friend, whose memory you revered, you would have glowed with 
satisfaction at detecting the falsehood of the charge, and gloried 
in defending his injured fame. It is because ye are sunk in the 
cruelty of superstition, or feel no interest in the honour of your 
Creator, that ye listen to the horrid tales of the Bible, or hear them 
with callous indifference. The evidence I have produced, and 
shall still produce in the course of this work, to prove that the 
Bible is without authority, will, whilst it wounds the stubbornness 
of a priest, relieve and tranquillize the minds of millions ; it will 
free them from all those hard thoughts of the Almighty which 
priest-craft and the Bible had infused into their minds, and which 
stood in everlasting opposition to all their ideas of his moral 
justice and benevolence. 

I come now to the two books of Kings, and the two books of 
Chronicles. Those books are altogether historical, and are chief- 
ly confined to the lives and actions of the Jewish kings, who in 
general were a parcel of rascals ; but these are matters with which 
we have no more concern, than we have with the Roman em- 
perors, or Homer's account of the Trojan war. Besides which, 
as those works are anonymous, and as we know nothing of the 
writer, or of his character, it is impossible for us to know what 
degree of credit to give to the matters related therein. Like all 
other ancient histories, they appear to be a jumble of fable and 
of fact, and of probable and of improbable things ; but which ? 
distance of time and place, and change of circumstances in the 
world, have rendered obsolete and uninteresting. 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 91 

The chief use I shall make of those books, will be that of com. 
paring them with each other, and with other parts of the Bible, to 
show the confusion, contradiction, and cruelty, in this pretended 
word of God. 

The first book of Kings begins with the reign of Solomon, 
which according to the Bible Chronology, was 1015 years before 
Christ ; and the second book ends 588 years before Christ, being 
a little after the reign of Zedekiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, after 
taking Jerusalem, and conquering the Jews, carried captive to 
Babylon. The two books include a space of 427 years. 

The two book of Chronicles are a history of the same times, 
and in general of the same persons, by another author ; for it 
would be absurd to suppose that the same author wrote the his- 
tory twice over. The first book of Chronicles (after giving the 
genealogy from Adam to Saul, which takes up the first nine chap- 
ters) begins with the reign of David ; and the last book ends as 
in the last book of Kings, soon after the reign of Zedekiah, about 
588 years before Christ. The two last verses of the last chapter 
bring the history 52 years more forward, that is, to 53G. But 
these verses do not belong to the book, as I shall show when I 
come to speak of the book of Ezra. 

The two books of Kings, besides the history of Saul, David 
and Solomon, who reigned over all Israel, contain an abstract of 
the lives of seventeen kings and one queen, who are styled kings 
of Judah, and of nineteen, who are styled kings of Israel ; for 
the Jewish nation, immediately on the death of Solomon, split 
into two parties, who chose separate kings, and who carried on 
most rancorous wars against each other. 

Those two books are little more than a history of assassi- 
nations, treachery, and wars. The cruelties that the Jews had 
accustomed themselves to practise on the Caananites, whose 
country they had savagely invaded under a pretended gift front 
God, they afterwards practised as furiously on each other. 
Scarcely half their kings died a natural death, and in some instances 
whole families were destroyed to secure possession to the suc- 
cessor, \vho, after a few years, and sometimes only a few months, 
or less, shared the same fate. In the tenth chapter of the second 
book of Kings, an account is given of two baskets full of chilv 
dren's heads, 70 in number, being exposed at the entrance of the 
city ; they were the children of Ahab, and were murdered by 



92 



THE AGE OF REASON. 



[part m 



the orders of Jehu, whom Elisha, the pretended mart of God, 
had anointed to be king over Israel, on purpose to commit this 
bloody deed, and assassinate his predecessor. And in the ac- 
count of the reign of Manaham, one of the kings of Israel who 
had murdered Shallum, who had reigned but one month, it is said. 
Kings, chap. xv. ver. 16, that Manaham smote the city of 
Tiphsah, because they opened not the city to him, and all the 
women that ivere therein that were with child they ripped up. 

Could we permit ourselves to suppose that the Almighty would 
distinguish any nation of people by the name of his chosen people, 
we must suppose that people to have been an example to all the rest 
of the world of the purest piety and humanity, and not such a nation 
of ruffians and cut-throats as the ancient Jews were; a people, 
who, corrupted by, and copying after such monsters and imposters 
as Moses and Aaron, Joshua, Samuel, and David, had distinguish- 
ed themselves above all others, on the face of the known earth, 
for barbarity and wickedness. If we will not stubbornly shut 
our eyes, and steel our hearts, it is impossible not to see, in 
spite of all that long-established superstition imposes upon the 
mind, that that flattering appellation of his chosen people is no 
other than a lie the priests and leaders of the Jews had invent- 
ed, to cover the baseness of their own characters ; and which 
Christian priests, sometimes as corrupt, and often as cruel, 
have professed to believe. 

The two books of Chronicles are a repetition of the same 
crimes ; but the history is broken in several places, by the author 
leaving out the reign of some of their kings ; and in this, as well 
as in that of Kings, there is such a frequent transition from kings 
of Judah to kings of Israel, and from kings of Israel to kings of 
Judah, that the narrative is obscure in the reading. In the same 
book the history sometimes contradicts itself; for example, in the 
second book of Kings, chap. i. ver. 8, we are told, but in rather 
ambiguous terms, that after the death of Ahaziah, king of Israel, 
Jehoram, or Joram (who was of the house of Ahab) reigned in 
his stead in the second year of Jehoram, or Joram, son of Je- 
hoshaphat king of Judah ; and in chap. viii. ver. 16, of the same 
book, it is said, and in the fifth year of Joram, the son of Ahab, 
king of Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, began to 
reign; that is, one chapter says Joram of Judah began to 
reign in the second year of Joram of Israel ; and the other chap- 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 93 

ter says, that Joram of Israel began to reign in the fifth year of 
Joram of J udah. 

Several of the most extraordinary matters related in one history, 
as having happened during the reign of such and such of their kings, 
are not to be found in the other, in relating the reign of the same 
king ; for example, the two first rival kings, after the death of 
Solomon, were Rehoboam and Jeroboam ; and in 1 Kings, chap, 
xii. and xiii. an account is given of Jeroboam making an offering 
of burnt incense, and that a man who is there called a man of God, 
cried out against the altar, chap. xiii. ver. 2, " altar ! altar ! 
thus saith the Lord ; Behold, a child shall be born to the house of 
David, Josiah by name, and upon thee shall he offer the priests of 
the high places, and burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall 
be burnt upon thee." — Yer. 3, " And it came to pass, when king 
Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, which had cried 
against the altar in Bethel, that he put forth his hand from the altar, 
saying, Lay hold on him ; and his hand which he put out against 
him dried up, so that he could not pull it again to him." 

One would think that such an extraordinary case as this, (which 
is spoken of as a judgment,) happening to the chief of one of the 
parties, and that at the first moment of the separation of the Israel- 
ites into two nations, woubi if it h d been true, have been recorded 
in both histories. But though men in latter time have believed all 
that the prophets have said unto them, it does not appear these pro- 
phets or historians believed each other, they knew each other too 
well. 

A long account also is given in Kings about Elijah. It runs 
through several chapters, and concludes with telling, 2 Kings, 
chap. ii. ver. 11, " And it came to pass, as they (Elijah and Eli- 
sha) still went on, and talked, that behold, there appeared a chariot 
of fire and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder, and Elijah 
went up by a whirlwind into heaven." Hum ! this the author of 
Chronicles, miraculous as the story is, makes no mention or, though 
he mentions Elijah by name ; neither does he say any thing of the 
story related in the second chapter of the -same book of Kings, 
of a parcel of children calling Elisha bald head, bald head ; and 
that this man of God, ver.24, " turned back, and looked upon them, 
and cursed them in the name of the Lord ; and there came forth 
two she bears out of the wood, and tore forty and two children of 
them." He also passes over in silence the story told, 2 Kings, 



M THE AGE OF REASON". [PART II 

chap. xiii. that when they were burying a man in the sepulchre, 
where Elisha had been buried, it happened that the dead man, as 
they were letting him down, (ver. 21,) " touched the bones of Eli- 
sha, and he (the dead man) revived, and stood upon his feet." The 
story does not tell us whether they buried the man notwithstand- 
ing he revived and stood upon his feet, or drew him up again. 
Upon all these stories, the writer of Chronicles is as silent as any 
writer of the present day, who did not choose to be accused of 
lying, or at least of romancing, would be about stories of the same 
kind. 

But, however these two historians may differ from each other, 
with respect to the tales related by either, they are silent alike 
with respect to those men styled prophets, whose writings fill up 
the latter part of the Bible. Isaiah, who lived in the time of He- 
zekiah, is mentioned in Kings, and again in Chronicles, when these 
historians are speaking of that reign ; but except in one or two 
instances at most, and those very slightly, none of the rest are so 
much as spoken of, or even hinted at ; though, according to the 
Bible chronology, they lived within the time those histories were 
written ; some of them long before. If those prophets, as they 
are called, were men of such importance in their day, as the com- 
pilers of the Bible, and priests, and commentators have since 
represented them to be, how can it be accounted for, that not 
one of these histories should say any thing about them ? 

The history in the books of Kings and of Chronicles is brought 
forward, as I have already said, to the year 588 before Christ ; it 
will therefore be proper to examine, which of these prophets lived 
before that period. 

Here follows a table of all the prophets, with the times in which * 
they lived before Christ, according to the Chronology affixed to 
the first chapter of each of the books of the prophets ; and also 
of the number of years they lived before the books of Kings and 
Chronicles were written. 



PART II.] 



THE AGE OP REASON*. 



Table of the Prophets, with the time in which they lived before 
Christ, and also before the books of Kings and Chronicles 




Jeremiah - 629 41 j 




Ezekiel - - 595 7 not mentioned. 

Daniel - - 607 19 not mentioned. 

Hosea - - 785 97 not mentioned. 

Joel - - I 800 212 not mentioned. 

Amos - - 789 199 not mentioned. 

Obadiah - - 789 199 not mentioned 

Jonah - - 862 274 see the note.* 

Micah - - 750 162 not mentioned. 

Nahum - - 713 125 jnot mentioned. 

Habakkuk- * 620 38 'not mentioned. 

Zephaniah- - 630 42 Inot mentioned, 




! after the 
year 588 



This table is either not very honourable for the Bible historians, 
or not very honorable for the Bible prophets ; and I leave to 
priests, and commentators, who are very learned in little things, 
to settle the point of etiquette between the two ; and to assign a 
reason, why the authors of Kings and Chronicles have treated 
those prophets, whom in the former part of the Age of Reason, I 
have considered as poets, with as much degrading silence as any 
historian of the present day would treat Peter Pindar. 

I have one observation more to make on the book of Chronicles ; 
after which I shall pass on to review the remaining books of the 



In my observations on the book of Genesis, I have quoted a 
passage from the 36th chapter, verse 31, which evidently refers to 
a time, after that kings began to reign over the children of Israel ; 
and I have shown that as this verse is verbatim the same as in 
Chronicles, chap. i. verse 43, where it stands consistently with the 

* In 2 Kings, chap. xiv. ver. 25, the name of Jonah is mentioned on account 
of the restoration of a tract of land by Jeroboam ; but nothing further is said 
of him, nor is any allusion made to the book of Jonah, nor to his expedition 
to Ninevah, nor to his encounter with the whale. 



Bible. 



96 THE AGE OF HEASON. [PART II. 

order of history, which in Genesis it does not, that the verse in 
Genesis, and a great part of the 36th chapter, have been taken 
from Chronicles ; and that the book of Genesis, though it is 
placed first in the Bible, and ascribed to Moses, has been manu- 
factured by some unknown person, after the book of Chronicles 
was written, which was not until at least eight hundred and sixty 
years after the time of Moses. 

The evidence I proceed by to substantiate this is regular, and 
has in it but two stages. First, as I have already stated, that the 
passage in Genesis refers itself for time to Chronicles; secondly, 
that the book of Chronicles, to which this passage refers itself, was 
not begun to be written until at least eight hundred and sixty 
years after the time of Moses. To prove this, we have only to 
look into the thirteenth verse of the third chapter of the first book 
of Chronicles, where the writer, in giving the genealogy of the 
descendants of David, mentions Zedekiah; and it was in the 
time of Zedekiah, that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, 
588 years before Christ, and consequently more than 860 years 
after Moses. Those who have superstitiously boasted of the 
antiquity of the Bible, and particularly of the books ascribed to 
Moses, have done it without examination, and without any autho- 
rity than that of one credulous man telling it to another ; for, so 
far as historical and chronological evidence applies, the very first 
book in the Bible is not so ancient as the book of Homer, by more 
than three hundred years, and is about the same age with M sop's 
Fables. 

I am not contending for the morality of Homer ; on the con- 
trary, I think it a book of false glory, tending to inspire immoral 
and mischievous notions of honour : and with respect to JEsop, 
though the moral is in general just, the fable is often cruel ; and the 
cruelty of the fable does more injury to the heart, especially in a 
child, than the moral does good to the judgment 

Having now dismissed Kings and Chronicles, I come to the 
next in course, the book of Ezra. 

As one proof, among others, I shall produce, to show the dis- 
order in which this pretended word of God, the Bible, has been 
put together, and the uncertainty of who the authors were, we 
have only to look at the three first verses in Ezra, and the two 
last in Chronicles ; for by what kind of cutting and shuffling has 
it been that the three first verses in Ezra should be the two last 



THE AGE OF REASON. 



97 



IPART II.] 

verses in Chronicles, or that the two last in Chronicles should be 
the three first in Ezra ? Either the authors did not know their 
own works, or the compilers did not know the authors. 



Two last Verses of Chronicles. 
Ver. 22. Now in the first 

ear of Cyrus, king of Persia, 
that the word of the Lord, 
spoken by the mouth of Jere- 
miah, might be accomplished, 
the Lord stirred up the spirit of 
Cyrus, king of Persia, that he 
made a proclamation throughout 
all his kingdom, and put it also 
in writing, saying* 

23. Thus saith Cyrus, king 
of Persia, all the kingdoms of 
the earth hath the Lord God 
of heaven given me ; and he 
hath charged me to build him 
an house in Jerusalem, which is 
in Judah. Who is there among 
you of his people 1 the Lord 
his God be with him, and let 
him go up. 



Three first Verses of Ezra. 
Ver. 1. Now in the first year 
of Cyrus, king of Persia, that 
the word of the Lord, by the 
mouth of Jeremiah, might be 
fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the 
spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, 
that he made a proclamation 
throughout all his kingdom, and 
put it also in writing, saying, 

2. Thus saith Cyrus, king of 
Persia, The Lord God of hea- 
ven hath given me all the king- 
doms of the earth ; and he hath 
charged me to build him an 
house at Jerusalem, which is in 
Judah. 

3. Who is there among you 
of all his people ? his God be 
with him, and let him go up, to 
Jerusalem, which is in Judah, 
and build the house of the Lord 
God of Israel (he is the God) 
which is in Jerusalem. 

The last verse in Chronicles is broken abruptly, and ends in the 

middle of a phrase with the word up, without signifying to what 

place. This abrupt break, and the appearance of the same verses 

in different books, show, as I have already said, the disorder and 

ignorance in which the Bible has been put together, and that the 

compilers of it had no authority for what they were doing, nor we 

any authority for believing what they have done.* 

* I observed, as I passed along, several broken and senseless passages in the 
Bible, without thinking them of consequence enough to be introduced in the 
body of the work ; such as that, 1 Samuel, chap. xiii. ver. 1, where it is said, 
"Saul reigned one year; and when he had reigned two years over Israel, Saul 
chose him three thousand men, &c." The first part of the verse, that Saul 
reigned one year has no sense, since it does not tell us what Saul did, nor say 
any thing of what happened at the end of that one year ; and it is, besides, 
mere absurdity to sav he reigned one year, when the very next phrase says 

13 



THE AGE OF REASON* 



[part II, 



The only thing that has any appearance of certainty in the 
book of Ezra, is the time in which it was written, which was im- 
mediately after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian cap- 
tivity, about 536 years before Christ. Ezra (who, according to 
the Jewish commentators, is the same person as is called Esdras 
in the Apocrypha) was one of the persons who returned, and who, 
it is probable, wrote the account of that affair. Nehemiah, whose 
book follows next to Ezra, was another of the returned persons ; 
and who, it is also probable, wrote the account of the same affair, 
in the book that bears his name. But those accounts are nothing 
to us, nor to any other persons, unless it be to the Jews, as a part 
of the histoiy of their nation ; and there is just as much of the 
Word of God in those books as there is in any of the histories of 
France, or Rapin's history of England, or the history of any other 
country. 

But even in matters of historical record, neither of those writer® 
are to be depended upon. In the second chapter of Ezra, the 
writer gives a list of the tribes and families, and of the precise 
number of souls of each that returned from Babylon to Jerusalem; 
and this enrolment of the persons so returned, appears to have 
been one of the principal objects for writing the book ; but in this 
there is an error, that destroys the intention of the undertaking 

he had reigned two ; for if he had reigned two r it was impossible not to have 
reigned one. 

Another instance occurs in Joshua^ chap. v. where the writer tells us a story 
of an angel (for such the table of contents at the head of the chapter calls 
him,) appearing unto Joshua ; and the story ends abruptly, and without any 
conclusion. The story is as follows : — Ver. 13, " And it came to pass, when 
Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold there 
stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand ; and Joshua 
went unto him and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries ?" 
Verse 14, " And he said, Nay ; but as the captain of the hosts of the Lord 
am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship 
and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant?" Verse 15, 
" And the captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Lose thy shoe from off 
thy foot ; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so," 
■ — And what then ; nothing, for here the story ends, and the chapter too. 

Either this story is broken off in the middle, or it is a story told by some 
Jewish humourist, in ridicule of Joshua's pretended mission from God ; and 
the compilers of the Bible, not perceiving the design of the story, have told it 
as a serious matter. As a story of humour and ridicule, it has a great deal of 
point , for it pompously introduces an angel in the figure of a man, with a 
drawn sword in his hand, before whom Joshua falls on his face to the earth, 
and worships, (which is contrary to their second commandment ;) and then, 
this most important embassy from heaven ends, in telling Joshua to pull off his 
shoe. It might as well have told him to pull up his breeches. 

It is certain, however, that the Jews did not credit every thing their leaders 
told them, as appears from the cavalier manner in which they speak of Moses,, 
when he was gone into the mount. " As for this Moses, say they, we wot 
not what is become of him." Exod. chap. x. xxii. ver. 1. 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 99 

The writer begins his enrolment in the following manner : — 
chap. ii. ver. 3, " The children of Parosh, two thousand one hun- 
dred seventy and four." Terse 4, " The children of Shephatiah, 
three hundred seventy and two." And in this manner he pro- 
ceeds through all the families ; and in the 64th verse, he makes a 
total, and says, the whole congregation together was forty and two 
thousand three hundred and threescore. 

But whoever will take the trouble of casting up the several 
particulars, will find that the total is but 29,818 ; so that the error 
is 12,542.* What certainty then can there be in the Bible for 
any thing I 

Nehemiah, in like manner, gives a list of the returned families, 
and of the number of each family. He begins as in Ezra, by say- 
ing, chap. vii. ver. 8, " The children of Parosh, two thousand 
three hundred and seventy-two ;" and so on through all the fami- 
lies. The list differs in several of the particulars from that of 
Ezra. In the 66th verse, Nehemiah makes a total, and says, as 
Ezra had said, u The whole congregation together was forty and 
two thousand three hundred and three score." But the particu- 
lars of this list make a total but of 31,089, so that the error here is 
11,271. These writers may do well enough for Bible-makers, but 
not for any thing where truth and exactness is necessary. The 
next book in course is the book of Esther. If Madam Esther 
thought it any honour to offer herself as a kept mistress to Ahasue- 
rus, or as a rival to Queen Yashti, who had refused to come to a 
drunken king, in the midst of a drunken company, to be made a 
show of, (for the account says, they had been drinking seven days, 
and were merry,) let Esther and Mordecai look to that, it is no 
business of ours ; at least, it is none of mine ; besides which the 



t Particulars efthe Families from the second chapter of Ezra. 



Ohap. ii. 




Bro't forw. ll,577j Bro't forw. 


15,783 


Bro't forw. 


19,444 


Verses 3 


2172 


Ver. 13 


666 
2056 


Ver. 23 


128 


Ver. 33 


725 


4 


372 


14 


24 


42 


34 


345 


5 


775 


15 


454 


25 


743 


35 


3630 


6 


2S12 


16 


98 


28 


621 


36 


973 


7 


1254 


17 


323 


27 


122 


37 


1052 


8 


945 


18 


112 


28 


223 


38 


1247 


9 


760 


19 


223 


29 


52 


39 


1017 


10 


642 


20 


95 


30 


156 


40 


74 


11 


623 


21 


123 


31 


• 1254. 41 


128 


a 2 


1222 


22 


56 


32 


320 


42 
58 
60 


139 
392 
652 




11,577 




15,783 




19,444 


Total. 


29,818 



LofC. 



100 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART tl*. 

story has a great deal the appearance of being fabulous, and is also 
anonymous. I pass on to the book of Job. 

The book of Job differs in character from all the books we have 
hitherto passed over. Treachery and murder make no part of 
this book ; it is the meditations of a mind strongly impressed with 
the vicissitudes of human life, and by turns sinking under, and 
struggling against the pressure. It is a highly wrought composi- 
tion, between willing submission and involuntary discontent ; and 
shows man, as he sometimes is, more disposed to be resigned than 
he is capable of being. Patience has but a small share in the 
character of the person of whom the book treats ; on the contrary, 
his grief is often impetuous ; but he still endeavours to keep a 
guard upon it, and seems determined, in the midst of accumulat- 
ing ills, to impose upon himself the hard duty of contentment. 

I have spoken in a respectful manner of the book of Job in the 
former part of the Age of Reason, but without knowing at that time 
what I have learned since ; which is, that from all the evidence 
that can be collected, the book of Job does not belong to the 
Bible. 

I have seen the opinion of two Hebrew commentators, Abe-, 
nezra and Spinoza, upon this subject ; they both say that the book 
of Job carries no internal evidence of being an Hebrew book ; 
that the genius of the composition, and the drama of the piece, are 
not Hebrew ; that it has been translated from another language 
into Hebrew, and that the author of the book was a G entile ; that 
the character represented under the name of Satan (which is the 
first and only time this name is mentioned in the Bible) does not 
correspond to any Hebrew idea ; and that the two convocations 
which the Deity is supposed to have made of those, whom th© 
poem calls sons of God, and the familiarity which this supposed 
Satan is stated to have with the Deity, are in the same case. 

It may also be observed, that the book shows itself to be the 
production of a mind cultivated in science, which the Jews, so far 
from being famous for, were very ignorant of. The allusions to 
objects of natural philosophy are frequent and strong, and are of 
a different cast to any thing in the books known to be Hebrew. 
The astronomical names, Pleiades, Orion, and Arcturus, are 
Greek, and not Hebrew names, and as it does not appear from 
any thing that is to be found in the Bible, that the Jews knew any 
thing of astronomy, or that they studied it, they had no translation 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 10% 

of those names into their own language, but adopted the names as 
they found them in the poem. 

That the Jews did translate the literary productions of the Gen- 
tile nations into the Hebrew language, and mix them with their 
own, is not a matter of doubt ; the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs 
is an evidence of this ; it is there said, ver. 1, The word of king 
Lemuel, the prophecy which his mother taught him. This verse 
stands as a preface to the proverbs that follow, and which are not 
the proverbs of Solomon but of Lemuel ; and this Lemuel was 
not one of the kings of Israel, nor of Judah, but of some other 
country, and consequently a Gentile. The Jews, however, have 
adopted his proverbs, and as they cannot give any account who 
the author of the book of Job was, or how they came by the book ; 
and as it differs in character from the Hebrew writings, and stands 
totally unconnected with every other book and chapter in the 
Bible, before it, and after it, it has all the circumstantial evidence 
of being originally a book of the Gentiles.* 

The Bible-makers, and those regulators of time, the Chronolo- 
gists, appear to have been at a loss where to place, and how to 
dispose of the book of Job ; for it contains no one historical cir- 
cumstance, nor allusion to any, that might serve to determine its 
place in the Bible. But it would not have answered the purpose 
of these men to have informed the world of their ignorance ; and, 
therefore, they have affixed it to the sera of 1 520 years before 
Christ which is during the time the Israelites were in Egypt, and 
for which they have just as much authority and no more than I 
should have for saying it was a thousand years before that period. 
The probability, however, is, that it is older than any book in the 



* The prayer known by the name of Uigur's Prayer, in the 30th chapter of 
proverbs, immediately preceding the proverbs of Lemuel, and which is the 
only sensible, well-conceived, and well-expressed prayer in the Bible, has 
much the appearance of being a prayer taken from the Gentiles. The name 
of A gur occurs on no other occasion than this ; and he is introduced, together 
with the prayer ascribed to him, in the same manner, and nearly in the same 
words, that Lemuel and his proverbs are introduced in the chapter that follows. 
The first verse of the 30th chapter says, " The words of Agur, the son of Ja- 
keh, even the prophecy ;" here the word prophecy is used with the same ap- 
plication it has in the following chapter of Lemuel, unconnected with any 
thing of prediction. The prayer of Agur is in the 8th and 9th verses, 11 Remove 
far from me vanity and lies ; give me neither riches nor poverty, but feed me with 
food convenient for me; lest I be full and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord ! 
or lest I be poor an d steal, and take the name of my God in vain." This has not 
any of the marks of being a Jewish prayer, for the Jews never prayed but 
when they were in trouble, and never for any thing but victory, vengeance, 
and riches. 



102 THE AGE OP REASON. [PART II. 

Bible ; and it is the only one that can be read without indignation 
@r disgust. 

We know nothing of what the ancient Gentile world (as it is 
called) was before the time of the Jews, whose practice has been 
to calumniate and blacken the character of all other nations ; and 
it is from the Jewish accounts that we have learned to call them 
heathens. But, as far as we know to the contrary, they were a just 
and moral people, and not addicted, like the Jews, to cruelty and 
revenge, but of whose profession of faith we are unacquainted. It 
appears to have been their custom to personify both virtue and 
vice by statues and images, as is done now-a-days both by sta- 
tuary and by painting ; but it does not follow from this, that they 
worshipped them any more than we do. I pass on to the book of 

Psalms, of which it is not necessary to make much observation. 
Some of them are moral, and others are very revengeful ; and 
the greater part relates to certain local circumstances of the 
Jewish nation at the time they were written, with which we have 
nothing to do. It is, however, an error or an imposition to call 
them the Psalms of David : they are a collection, as song-books 
are now-a-days, from different song-writers, who lived at different 
times. The 137th Psalm could not have been written till more 
than 400 years after the time of David, because it is written in 
commemoration of an event, the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, 
which did not happen till that distance of time. " By the rivers 
of Babylon we sat down ; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. 
We hanged our harps upon the willows, in the midst thereof; for 
there they that carried us away captive, required of us a song, 
saying, sing us one of the songs of Zion." As a man would 
say to an American, or to a Frenchman, or to an Englishman, 
sing us one of your American songs, or your French songs, or 
your English songs. This remark with respect to the time this 
Psalm was written, is of no other use than to show (among others 
already mentioned) the general imposition the world has been 
under, with respect to the authors of the Bible. No regard has 
been paid to time, place, and circumstance ; and the names of 
persons have been affixed to the several books, which it was as 
impossible they should write, as that a man should walk in pro- 
cession at his own funeral. 

The Book of Proverbs. These, like the Psalms, are a collect 
lion, and that from authors belonging to other nations than those 



FART II.] THE AGE O* REASON. 103 

of the Jewish nation, as I have shown in the observations upon 
the book of Job ; besides which, some of the proverbs ascribed 
to Solomon, did not appear till two hundred and fifty years after 
the death of Solomon ; for it is said in the 1st verse of the 25th 
chapter, " These are also proverbs of Solomon, which the men 
of Hezehiah, king of Judah, copied out." It was two hundred 
and fifty years from the time of Solomon to the time of Hezekiah. 
When a man is famous and his name is abroad, he is made the 
putative father of things he never said or did ; and this, most 
probably, has been the case with Solomon. It appears to have 
been the fashion of that day to make proverbs, as it is now to 
make jest-books, and father them upon those who never saw them. 

The Book of Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher, is also ascribed to 
Solomon, and that with much reason, if not with truth. It is writ- 
ten as the solitary reflections of a worn-out debauchee, such as 
Solomon was, who looking back on scenes he can no longer enjoy, 
cries out, All is vanity! A great deal of the metaphor and of the 
sentiment is obscure, most probably by translation ; but enough 
is left to show they were strongly pointed in the original.* From 
what is transmitted to us of the character of Solomon, he was 
witty, ostentatious, dissolute, and at last melancholy. He lived 
fast, and died, tired of the world, at the age of fifty-eight years. 

Seven hundred wives, and three hundred concubines, are worse 
than none ; and, however it may carry with it the appearance of 
heightened enjoyment, it defeats all the felicity of affection, by 
leaving it no point to fix upon ; divided love is never happy. This 
was the case with Solomon ; and if he could not, with all his pre- 
tensions to wisdom, discover it beforehand, he merited, unpitied, 
the mortification he afterwards endured. In this point of view, 
his preaching is unnecessary, because, to know the consequences, 
it is only necessary to know the cause. Seven hundred wives, 
and three hundred concubines, would have stood in place of the 
whole book. It was needless after this to say, that all was vanity 
and vexation of spirit ; for it is impossible to derive happiness 
from the company of those whom we deprive of happiness. 

To be happy in old age, it is necessary that we accustom our- 
selves to objects that can accompany the mind all the way through 
life, and that we take the rest as good in their day. The mere 

* Those that look out of the window shall he darkened, is an obscure figure 
in translation for loss of sight. 



104 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II. 

man of pleasure is miserable in old age ; and the mere drudge in 
business is but little better : whereas, natural philosophy, mathe- 
matical and mechanical science, are a continual source of tranquil 
pleasure ; and in spite of the gloomy dogmas of priests, and of 
superstition, the study of those things is the study of the true 
theology ; it teaches man to know and to admire the Creator, for 
the principles of science are in the creation j and are unchange- 
able, and of divine origin. 

Those who knew Benjamin Franklin will recollect, that his 
mind was ever young ; his temper ever serene : science, that 
never grows grey, was always his mistress. He was never with- 
out an object, for when we cease to have an object, we become 
like an invalid in an hospital waiting for death. 

Solomon's Songs are amorous and foolish enough, but which 
wrinkled fanaticism has called divine. The compilers of the 
Bible have placed these songs after the book of Ecclesiastes ; and 
the Chronologists have affixed to them the sera of 1014 years be- 
fore Christ, at which time Solomon, according to the same chro- 
nology, was nineteen years of age, and was then forming his 
seraglio of wives and concubines. The Bible-makers and the 
Chronologists should have managed this matter a little better, and 
either have said nothing about the time, or chosen a time less in- 
consistent with the supposed divinity of those songs ; for Solomon 
was then in the honey-moon of one thousand debaucheries. 

It should also have occurred to them, that as he wrote, if he 
did write, the book of Ecclesiastes, long after these songs, and in 
which he exclaims, that all is vanity and vexation of spirit ; that 
he included those songs in that description. This is the more 
probable, because he says, or somebody for him, Ecclesiastes, 
chap. ii. v. 8, " I got me men singers, and women singers, (most 
probably to sing those songs,) and musical instruments of all 
sorts ; and behold (ver. .11,) all was vanity and vexation of spirit." 
The compilers, however, have done their work but by halves ; for 
as they have given us the songs, they should have given us the 
tunes, that we might sing them. 

The books, called the books of the Prophets, fill up all the 
remaining parts of the Bible ; they are sixteen in number, begin- 
ning with Isaiah, and ending with Malachi, of which I have given 
you a list in my observations upon Chronicles. Of these sixteen 
prophets, all of whom, except the three last, lived within the time 



2>ART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 105 

the books of Kings and Chronicles were written ; two only, 
Isaiah and Jeremiah, are mentioned in the history of those books. 
I shall begin with those two, reserving what I have to say on the 
general character of the men called prophets to another part of the 
work. 

Whoever will take the trouble of reading the book ascribed to 
Isaiah, will find it one of the most wild and disorderly composi- 
tions ever put together ; it has neither beginning, middle, nor end; 
and, except a short historical part, and a few sketches of history 
in two or three of the first chapters, is one continued incoherent, 
bombastical rant, full of extravagant metaphor, without application, 
and destitute of meaning; a school-boy would scarcely have been 
excusable for writing such stuff; it is (at least in the translation) 
that kind of composition and false taste, that is properly called 
prose run mad. 

The historical part begins at the 36th chapter, and is continued 
to the end of the 39th chapter. It relates to some matters that 
are said to have passed during the reign of Hezckiah, king of 
Judah, at which time Isaiah lived. This fragment of history 
begins and ends abruptly ; it has not the least connection with the 
chapter that precedes it, nor with that which follows it, nor with 
any other in the book. It is probable that Isaiah wrote this frag., 
ment himself, because he was an actor in the circumstances it 
treats of; but, except this part, there are scarcely two chapters 
that have any connection with each other ; one is entitled, at the 
beginning of the first verse, the burden of Babylon ; another, the 
burden of Moab ; another, the burden of Damascus ; another, the 
burden of Egypt; another, the burden of the Desart of the Sea; 
another, the burden of the Valley of Vision ; as you would say, 
the story of the knight of the burning mountain, the story of Cin- 
derella, or the children of the wood, &c. &c. 

I have already shown, in the instance of the two last verses of 
Chronicles, and the three first in Ezra, that the compilers of the 
Bible mixed and confounded the writings of different authors with 
eaeh other, which alone, were there no other cause, is sufficient to 
destroy the authenticity of any compilation, because it is more 
than presumptive evidence that the compilers are ignorant who 
<the authors were. A very glaring instance of this occurs in the 
book ascribed to Isaiah, the latter part of the 44th chapter, and 
the beginning of the 45th, so far from having been written by 

14 



106 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II. 

Isaiah, could only have been written by some person who lived, 
at least, an hundred an fifty years after Isaiah was dead. 

These chapters are a compliment to Cyrus, who permitted the 
Jews to return to Jerusalem from the Babylonian captivity, to 
rebuild Jerusalem and the temple, as is stated in Ezra. The 
last verse of the 44th chapter, and the beginning of the 45th, are 
in the following words : " That saith of Cyrus, he is my shepherd, 
and shall perform all my pleasure; even saying to Jerusalem, thou 
shalt be built ; and to the temple thy foundations shall be laid : 
thus saith the Lord to his annointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I 
have holden to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins 
of kings to open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates 
shall not be shut; I will go before thee, <^c." 

What audacity of church and priestly ignorance it is to impose 
this book upon the world as the writing of Isaiah, when Isaiah, 
according to their own chronology, died soon after the death of 
Hezekiah, which was 698 years before Christ ; and the decree of 
Cyrus, in favour of the Jews returning to Jerusalem, was, accord- 
ing to the same chronology, 536 years before Christ ; which was 
a distance of time between the two of 162 years. I do not sup- 
pose that the compilers of the Bible made these books, but rather 
that they picked up some loose, anonymous essays, and put them 
together under the name of such authors as best suited their pur- 
pose. They have encouraged the imposition, which is next to 
inventing it ; for it was impossible but they must have observed it. 

When we see the studied craft of the scripture-makers, in mak- 
ing every part of this romantic book of school-boy's eloquence, 
bend to the monstrous idea of a Son of God, begotten by a ghost 
on the body of a virgin, there is no imposition we are not justified 
in suspecting them of. Every phrase and circumstance 'are 
marked with the barbarous hand of superstitious torture, and forced 
into meanings it was impossible they Could have. The head of 
every chapter, and the top of every page, are blazoned with the 
names of Christ and the church, that the unwary reader might 
suck in the error before he began to read. 

Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, Isaiah, chap. vii. 
ver. 14, has been interpreted to mean the person called Jesus 
Christ, and his mother Mary, and has been echoed through Christ- 
endom for more than a thousand years ; and such has been the 
rage of this opinion, that scarcely a spot in it but has been stained 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 107 

with blood and marked with desolation in consequence of it. 
Though it is not my intention to enter into controversy on subjects 
of this kind, but to confine myself to show that the Bible is spuri- 
ous ; and thus, by taking away the foundation, to overthrow at 
once the whole structure of superstition raised thereon ; I will, 
however, stop a moment, to expose the fallacious application of 
this passage. 

Whether Isaiah was playing a trick with Ahaz, king of Judah, 
to whom this passage is spoken, is no business of mine ; I mean 
only to show the misapplication of the passage, and that it has no 
more reference to Christ and his mother than it has to me and my 
mother. The story is simply this : 

The king of Syria and the king of Israel (I have already men- 
tioned that the Jews were split into two nations, one of which was 
called Judah, the capital of which was Jerusalem, and the other 
Israel) made war jointly against Ahaz, king of Judah, and marched 
their armies. towards Jerusalem. Ahaz and his people became 
alarmed, and the account says, ver. 2, " Their hearts werg moved 
as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind." 

In this situation of things, Lsaiah addresses himself to Ahaz, and 
assures him in the name of the Lord (the cant phrase of all the 
prophets) that these two kings should not succeed against him ; 
and to satisfy Ahaz that this should be the case, tells him to ask a 
sign. This, the account says, Ahaz declined doing ; giving as a 
reason that he would not tempt the Lord ; upon which Isaiah, who 
is the speaker, says, ver. 14 3 " Therefore the Lord himself shall 
give you a sign ; behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son 
and the 16th verse says, " And before this child shall know to 
refuse the evil, and chuse the good, the land which thou abhorrest 
or dreadest (meaning Syria and the kingdom of Israel) shall be 
forsaken of both her kings." Here then was the sign, and the 
time limited for the completion of the assurance or promise ; 
namely, before this child should know tp refuse the evil and chuse 
the good. 

Isaiah having committed himself thus far, it became necessary 
to him, in order to avoid the imputation of being a false prophet, 
and. the consequence thereof, to take measures to make this sign 
appear. It certainly was not a difficult thing, in any time of the 
world, to find a girl with child, or to make her so ; and perhaps 
Isaiah knew of one before-hand ; for I do not suppose that the 



108 THE AGE OF REASON". [PART IT. 

prophets of that day were any more to be trusted than the priests 
of this : be that, however, as it may, he says in the next chapter, 
ver. 2, " And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah 
the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah, and J went unto 
the prophetess, and she conceived and bare a son" 

Here then is the whole story, foolish as it is, of this child and 
this virgin ; and it is upon the bare-faced perversion of this story, 
that the book of Matthew, and the impudence and sordid interests 
of priests in latter times, have founded a theory which they call the 
gospel ; and have applied this story to signify the person they call 
Jesus Christ; begotten, they say, by a ghost, whom they call 
holy, on the body of a woman, engaged in marriage, and after- 
wards married, whom they call a virgin, 700 years after this fool- 
ish story was told ; a theory which, speaking for myself, I 
hesitate not to believe* and to say, is as fabulous and false as God 
is true.* 

But to show the imposition and falsehood of Isaiah, we have 
only to attend to the sequel of this story; which, though it is 
passed over in silence in the book of Isaiah, is related in the 28th 
chapter of the second Chronicles ; and which is, that instead of 
these two kings failing in their attempt against Ahaz, king of 
Judah, as Isaiah had pretended to foretel in the name of the Lord, 
they succeeded ; Ahaz was defeated and destroyed ; an hundred 
and twenty thousand of his people were slaughtered ; Jerusalem 
was plundered, and two hundred thousand women, and sons and 
daughters, carried into captivity. Thus much for this lying pro- 
phet and imposter Isaiah, and the book of falsehoods that bears 
his name. I pass on to the book of 

Jeremiah. This prophet, as he is called, lived in the time that 
Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, in the reign of Zedekiah, 
the last king of Judah ; and the suspicion was strong against him, 
that he was a traitor in the interest of Nebuchadnezzar. Every 
thing relating to Jeremiah shows him to have been a man of an 
equivocal character : in his metaphor of the potter and the clay r 
c. xviii. he guards his prognostications in such a crafty manner, as 
always to leave himself a door to escape by, in case the event 
should be contrary to what he had predicted. 

* In the 14th verse of the viith chapter, it is said, that the child should be 
called Immanuel ; but this name was not given to either of the children, other- 
wise than as a character which the word signifies. Thai of the prophetess 
was called Maher-shalal-hash-baz, and that of Mary was called Jesus, 



PART II. J THE AGE OF REASON. 109' 

In the 7th and 8th verses of that chapter, he makes the Al- 
mighty to say, " At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, 
and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and 
destroy it : if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn 
from their evil, I will repent me of the evil that I thought to do 
unto them." Here was a proviso against one side of the case : 
now for the other side. 

Verses 9 and 10, " At what instant I shall speak concerning a 
nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it do 
evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice : then I will repent me 
of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them." Here is a 
proviso against the other side ; and, according to this plan of pro- 
phesying, a prophet could never be wrong, however mistaken the 
Almighty might be. This sort of absurd subterfuge, and this 
manner of speaking of the Almighty, as one would speak of a 
man, is consistent with nothing but the stupidity of the Bible. 

As to the authenticity of the book, it is only necessary to read 
it in order to decide positively, that, though some passages record- 
ed therein may have been spoken by Jeremiah, he is not the au- 
thor of the book. The historical parts, if they can be called by that 
name, are in the most confused condition ; the same events are 
several times repeated, and that in a manner different, and some- 
times in contradiction to each other ; and this disorder runs even 
to the last chapter, where the history, upon which the greater part 
of the book has been employed, begins a-new, and ends abruptly. 
The book has all the appearance of being a medley of unconnect- 
ed anecdotes, respecting persons and things of that time, collected 
together in the same rude manner as if the various and contradic- 
tory accounts, that are to be found in a bundle of newspapers, re- 
specting persons and things of the present day, were put together 
without date, order or explanation. I will give two or three ex- 
amples of this kind. 

It appears, from the account of the 37th chapter, that the army 
of Nebuchadnezzar, which is called the army of the Chaldeans,, 
had besieged Jerusalem some time ; and on their hearing that 
the army of Pharaoh, of Egypt, was marching against them, they 
raised the seige, and retreated for a time. It may here be proper 
to mention, in order to understand this confused history, that Ne- 
buchadnezzar had besieged and taken Jerusalem, during the reign 
of Jehoakim, the predecessor of Zedekiah ; and that it was Nebu- 



110 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II T 

ehadnezzar who had made Zedekiah king, or rather viceroy ; and 
that this second siege, of which the book of Jeremiah treats, was 
in consequence of the revolt of Zedekiah against Nebuchadnez- 
zar. This will in some measure account for the suspicion that 
affixes itself to J eremiah, of being a traitor, and in the interest of 
Nebuchadnezzar ; whom Jeremiah calls, in the 43rd chap, ver* 
10, the servant of God. 

The 11th verse of this chapter, (the 37th,) says, " And it came 
to pass, that, when the army of the Chaldeans was broken up from 
Jerusalem, for fear of Pharaoh's army, that Jeremiah went forth 
out of Jerusalem, to go (as this account states) into the land of 
Benjamin, to separate himself thence in the midst of the people ; 
and when he was in the gate of Benjamin a captain of the ward 
was there, whose name was Irijah ; and he took Jeremiah the 
prophet, saying, Thou fallest away to the Chaldeans ; then Jere- 
miah said, It is false, I fall not away to the Chaldeans." Jeremiah 
being thus stopped and accused, was, after being examined, com- 
mitted to prison, on suspicion of being a traitor, where he re- 
mained, as is stated in the last verse of this chapter. 

But the next chapter gives an account of the imprisonment of 
Jeremiah, which has no connexion with this account, but ascribes 
his imprisonment to another circumstance, and for which we must 
go back to the 21st chapter. It is there stated, ver. 1, that Zede- 
kiah sent Pashur, the son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah, the son of 
Maaseiah the priest, to Jeremiah, to enquire of him concerning 
Nebuchadnezzar, whose army was then before Jerusalem; and 
Jeremiah said to them, ver. 8, " Thus saith the Lord, Behold I set 
before you the way of life, and the way of death ; he that abideth 
in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the 
pestilence ; but he that goeth out and falleth to the Chaldeans that 
besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a 
prey." 

This interview and conference breaks off abruptly at the end of 
the 10th verse of the 21st chapter ; and such is the disorder of 
this book, that we have to pass over sixteen chapters, upon various 
subjects, in order to come at the continuation and event of this 
conference ; and this brings us to the first verse of the 38th chap- 
ter, as I have just mentioned. 

The 38th chapter opens with saying, " Then Shapatiah, the son 
of Mattan ; Gedaliah, the son of Pashur ; and Jucal, the son of 



PART 11.] THE AGE Of REASON. Ill 

Shelemiah ; and Pashur, the son of Malchiah ; (here are more 
persons mentioned than in the 21st chapter,) heard the words that 
Jeremiah spoke unto the people, saying, Thus saith the Lord, He 
that remaineth in this city, shall die by the sword, by the famine, 
and by the pestilence ; but he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans 
shall live ; for he shall have his life for a prey, and shall live ; 
(which are the words of the conference,) therefore, (say they to 
Zedekiah,) We beseech thee, let us put this man to death, for thus 
he weakeneth the hands of the men of war that remain in this city, 
and the hands of all the people in speaking such words unto them ; 
for this man seeketh not the welfare of the people, but the hurt ;" 
and at the 6th verse it is said, " Then they took Jeremiah, and put 
him into a dungeon of Malchiah." 

These two accounts are different and contradictory. The one 
ascribes his imprisonment to his attempt to escape out of the city ; 
the other to his preaching and prophesying in the city ; the one to 
his being seized by the guard at the gate ; the other to his being 
accused before Zedekiah, by the conferees.* 

In the next chapter (the 39th) we have another instance of the 
disordered state of this book : for notwithstanding the siege of the 

* I observed two chapters, 16th and 17th, in the first book of Samuel, that 
contradict each other with respect to David, and the manner he became ac- 
quainted with Saul ; as the 37th and 38th chapters of the book of Jeremiah 
contradict each other with respect to the cause of Jeremiah's imprisonment. 

In the 16th chapter of Samuel, it is said, that an evil spirit of God troubled 
Saul, and that his servants advised him (as a remedy) "to Seek out a man who 
was a cunning player upon the harp." And Saul said, ver. 17, "Provide now 
a man that can play well; and bring him unto me." Then answered one of his 
servants, and said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlemite, that is 
cunning in playing, and a mighty man, and a man of war, and prudent in mat- 
ters, and a comely person, and the Lord is with him ; wherefore Saul sent 
messengers unto Jesse, and said, " Send me David, thy son." And [verse 21] 
David came to Saul, and stood before him, and he loved him greatly, and he 
became his armour-bearer ; and when the evil spirit of God was upon Saul, 
[verse 23] David took his harp, and played with his hand, and Said was re- 
freshed, and was well. 

But the next chapter [17] gives an account, all different to this, of the man- 
ner that Saul and David became acquainted. Here it is ascribed to David's 
encounter with Goliah, when David was sent by his father to carry provision 
to his brethren in the camp. In the 55th verse of this chapter it is said, "And 
when Saul saw David go forth against the Philistine [Goliah] he said to Abnef, 
the captain of the host, Abner, whose son is this youth? And Abner said, 
As thy soul liveth, O king, 1 cannot tell. And the king said, Inquire thou 
whose son the stripling is. And as David returned from the slaughter of the 
Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul, with the head of the 
Philistine in his hand ; and Saul said unto him, Whose son art thou, thou 
young man ? And David answered, " I am the son of thy servant Jesse, the 
Bethlemite." These two accounts belie each other, because each of them 
supposes Saul and David not to have known each other before. This book, 
the Bible, is too ridiculous even for criticism. 



112 THE AGE OF REASON* [PART II* 

^ity, by Nebuchadnezzar, has been the subject of several of the 
preceding chapters, particularly the 37th and 38th, the 39 chap- 
ter begins as if not a word had been said upon the subject ; and as 
if the reader was to be informed of every particular respecting it ; 
for it begins with saying, ver. 1, " In the ninth year of Zedekiah, 
king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadnezzar, king of 
Babylon, and all his army, against Jerusalem, and besieged it, c^c. 

But the instance in the last chapter (the 52d) is still more glar- 
ing ; for though the story has been told over and over again, this 
chapter still supposes the reader not to know any thing of it, for 
it begins by saying, ver. 1," Zedekiah was one and twenty years old 
when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem, 
and his mother's name tvas Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of 
Libnah, (ver. 4.) and it came to pass in the ninth year of his 
reign, in the tenth month, that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, 
came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and pitched against 
it, and built forts against it, Sf-c. fyc" 

It is not possible that any one man, and more particularly Jere- 
miah, could have been the writer of this book. The errors are 
such as could not have been committed by any person sitting 
down to compose a work, Were I, or any other man, to write in 
such a disordered manner, nobody would read what was written ; 
and every body would suppose that the writer was in a state of 
insanity. The only way, therefore, to account for this disorder, is, 
that the book is a medley of detached unauthenticated anecdotes, 
put together by some stupid book-maker, under the name of Jere- 
miah ; because many of them refer to him, and to the circum- 
stances of the times he lived in. 

Of the duplicity, and of the false predictions of Jeremiah, I shall 
mention two instances, and then proceed to review the remainder 
of the Bible. 

It appears from the 38th chapter, that when Jeremiah was in 
prison, Zedekiah sent for him, and at this interview, which was 
private, Jeremiah pressed it strongly on Zedekiah to surrender 
himself to the enemy. " If," says he, (ver. 17,) " thou wilt assuredly 
go forth unto the king of Babylon's princes, then thy soul shall live, 
^•c." Zedekiah was apprehensive that what passed at this con- 
ference should be known ; and he said to Jeremiah, (ver. 25,) 
** If the princes (meaning those of Judah) hear that I have talked 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 113 

with thee, and they come unto thee, and say unto thee, Declare 
unto us now what thou hast said unto the king ; hide it not from 
us, and we will not put thee to death ; and also what the king said 
unto thee ; then thou shalt say unto them, I presented my suppli- 
cation before the king ; that he would not cause me to return to 
Jonathan's house to die there. Then came all the princes unto 
Jeremiah, and asked him, and he told them according to all the 
words the king had commanded." Thus, this man of God, as he 
is called, could tell a lie, or very strongly prevaricate, when he 
supposed it would answer his purpose ; for certainly he did not go 
to Zedekiah to make his supplication, neither did he make it ; he 
went because he was sent for, and he employed that, opportunity 
to advise Zedekiah to surrender himself to Nebuchadnezzar. 

In the 34th chapter, is a prophecy of Jeremiah to Zedekiah, in 
these words, (ver. 2,) " Thus saith the Lord, Behold I will give 
this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it 
with fire ; and thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but that thou 
shalt surely be taken, and delivered into his hand ; and thine eyes 
shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak 
with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon. Yet 
h-ear the novel of the Lord; Zedekiah, king of Judah, thus 
saith the Lord, Thou shalt not die by the sword, but thou shalt die 
in peace ; and with the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings 
that were before thee, so shall they burn odours for thee, and they 
will lament thee, saying, Jih, Lord ; for I have pronounced the 
vyord, saith the Lord." 

Now, instead of Zedekiah beholding the eyes of the king of 
Babylon, and speaking with him mouth to mouth, and dying 
in peace, and with the burning of odours, as at the funeral of 
his fathers, (as Jeremiah had declared the Lord himself had 
pronounced,} the reverse, according to the 52d chapter, was 
the case ; it is there said, (ver. 10,) " That the king of Babylon 
slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes : then he put out 
the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in chains, and carried him 
to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death." 
"What then can we say of these prophets, but that they are 
impostors and liars 1 

As for Jeremiah, he experienced none of those evils. He was 
taken into favour by Nebuchadnezzar, who gave him in charge to 
the captain of the guard, (chap, xxxix. ver. 12,) " Take him (said 

15 



114 THE AGE OF REASQK. [PART II* 

he) and look well to him, and do him no harm ; but do unto him 
even as he shall say unto thee." Jeremiah joined himself after- 
wards to Nebuchadnezzar, and went about prophesying for him 
against the Egyptians, who had marched to the relief of Jerusa- 
lem while it was besieged. Thus much for another of the lying 
prophets, and the book that bears his name. 

I have been the more particular in treating of the books ascribed 
to Isaiah and Jeremiah, because those two are spoken of in the 
books of Kings and of Chronicles, which the others are not. The 
remainder of the books ascribed to the men called prophets, I shall 
not trouble myself much about ; but take them collectively into 
the observations I shall offer on the character of the men styled 
prophets. 

In the former part of the Age of Reason, I have said that the 
word prophet was the Bible word for poet, and that the flights 
and metaphors of Jewish poets have been foolishly erected into 
what are now called prophecies. I am sufficiently justified in this 
opinion, not only because the books called the prophecies are 
written in poetical language, but because there is no word in the 
Bible, except it be the word prophet, that describes what we mean 
by a poet. I have also said, that the word signifies a performer 
upon musical instruments, of which I have given some instances ; 
such as that of a company of prophets prophesying with psalteries^ 
with tabrets, with pipes, with harps, &c. and that Saul prophesied 
with them, 1 Sam. chap. x. ver. 5. It appears from this passage* 
and from other parts in the book of Samuel, that the word prophet 
was confined to signify poetry and music ; for the person who 
was supposed to have a visionary insight into concealed things, 
was not a prophet but a seer,*. {I Sam. chap. ix. ver. 9 ;) and it 
was not till after the word seer went out of use (which most pro- 
bably was when Saul banished those he called wizards) that the 
profession of the seer, or the art of seeing, became incorporated 
into the word prophet. 

According to the modern meaning of the word prophet and pro- 
phesying, it signifies foretelling events to a great distance of time ; 
and it became necessary to the inventors of the gospel to give it 
this latitude of meaning, in order to apply or to stretch what they 

* I know not what is the Hebrew word that corresponds to the word seer 
in English ; but 1 observe it is translated into French by La Voyant, from 
the verb vow to see ; and which means the person who sees, or the seer. 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 115 

call the prophecies of the Old Testament, to the times of the New ; 
but according to the Old Testament, the prophesying of the seer, 
and afterwards of the prophet, so far as the meaning of the word 
seer was incorporated into that of prophet, had reference only to 
things of the time then passing, or very closely connected with it ; 
such as the event of a battle they were going to engage in, or of a 
journey, or of any enterprise they were going to undertake, or of 
any circumstance then pending, or of any difficulty they were then 
in ; all of which had immediate reference to themselves (as in the 
case already mentioned of Ahaz and Isaiah with respect to the 
expression, Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,) and 
not to any distant future time. It was that kind of prophesying 
that corresponds to what we call fortune-telling ; such as casting 
nativities, predicting riches, fortunate or unfortunate marriages, 
conjuring for lost goods, &c; and it is the fraud of the Christian 
church, not that of the Jews ; and the ignorance and the supersti- 
tion of modern, not that of ancient times, that elevated those poet- 
ical — musical — conjuring — dreaming — strolling gentry, into the 
yank they have since had. 

But, besides this general character of all the prophets, they had 
also a particular character. They were in parties, and they pro- 
phesied for or against, according to the party they were with ; as 
the poetical and political writers of the present day write in 
defence of the party they associate with against the other. 

After the Jews were divided into two nations, that of Judah 
and that of Israel, each party had its prophets, who abused 
and accused each other of being false prophets, lying prophets, 
impostors, &c. 

The prophets of the party of Judah prophesied against the pro- 
phets of the party of Israel ; and those of the party of Israel 
against those of Judah. This party prophesying showed itself 
immediately on the separation under the first two . rival kings, 
Rehoboam and Jeroboam. The prophet that cursed, or prophesied 
against the altar that Jeroboam had built in Bethel, was of the 
party of Judah, where Rehoboam was king ; and he was way-laid, 
on his return home, by a prophet of the party of Israel, who said 
unto him, (1 Kings chap, x.) " Art thou the man of God that came 
from Judah ? and he said, 1 am." Then the prophet of the 
party of Israel said to him, " 1 am a prophet also, as thou art, 
(signifying of Judah,) and an angel spake unto me by the word of 



116 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II« 

the Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee unto thine house, that 
he may eat bread and drink water : but (says the 18th verse) he 
lied unto him." This event, however, according to the story, is, 
that the prophet of Judah never got back to Judah, for he was 
found dead on the road, by the contrivance of the prophet of 
Israel, who, no doubt, was called a true prophet by his own party, 
and the prophet of Judah a lying prophet. 

In the third chapter of the second of Kings, a story is related of 
prophesying or conjuring, that shows, in several particulars, the 
character of a prophet. Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and Joram, 
king of Israel, had for a while ceased their party animosity, and 
entered into an alliance ; and these two, together with the king 
of Edom, engaged in a war against the king of Moab. After 
uniting, and marching their armies, the story says, they were in great 
distress for water, upon which Jehoshaphat, said, " Is there not 
here a prophet of the Lord, that we may enquire of the Lord by 
him ? and one of the servants of the king of Israel said here is Eli" 
sha. (Elisha was of the party of Judah.) And Jehoshaphat, the 
king of Judah, said, TJic word of the Lord is with him." The 
story then says, that these three kings went down to Elisha ; and 
when Elisha (who, as I have said, was a Judahmite prophet) saw 
the king of Israel, he said unto him, " What have I to do with 
thee, get thee to the prophets of thy father and the prophets oj 
ihy mother. Nay but, said the king of Israel, the Lord hath 
called these three kings together, to deliver them into the hands of 
the king of JVloab," (meaning because of the distress they were 
in for water;) upon which Elisha said, " As the Lord of hosts 
liveth before whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regarded Je 
hoshaphat, king of Judah, I ivould not look towards thee, nor see 
thee." Here is all the venom and vulgarity of a party prophet.— 
We have now to see the performance, or manner of prophesying. 

Yer. 15. " Bring me," said Elisha, " a minstrel ; and it came 
to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came 
upon him." Here is the farce of the conjuror. IN^dw for the pro- 
phecy : " And Elisha said, (singing most probably to the tune 
he was playing,) Thus saith the Lord, JWake this valley full of 
ditches;" which was just telling them what every countryman 
could have told them, without either fiddle or farce, that the way 
to get water was to dig for it. 

But as every conjuror is not famous alike for the same thing, 



FART II. J THE AGE OF REASON. 117 

so neither were those prophets ; for though all of them, at least 
those I have spoken of, were famous for lying, some of them ex- 
celled in cursing. Elisha, whom I have just mentioned, was a chief 
in this branch of prophesying ; it was he that cursed the forty-two 
children in the name of the Lord, whom the two she-bears came 
and devoured. We are to suppose that those children were of the 
party of Israel ; but as those who will curse will lie, there is just 
as much credit to be given to this story of Elisha's two she-bears 
as there is to that of the Dragon of Wantley, of whom it is said.— - 

Poor children three devoured he, 
That could not with him grapple ; 
And at one sup he eat them up, 
As a man would eat an apple. 

There was another description of men called prophets, that 
amused themselves with dreams and visions ; but whether by 
night or by day, we know not. These, if they were not quite 
harmless, were but little mischievous. Of this class are 

Ezekiel and Daniel ; and the first question upon those books, 
as upon all the others, is, are they genuine 1 that is, were they 
written by Ezekiel and Daniel 1 

Of this there is no proof ; but so far as my own opinion goes, 
I am more inclined to believe they were, than that they were not. 
My reasons for this opinion are as follow : First, Because those 
books do not contain internal evidence to prove they were not writ- 
ten by Ezekiel and Daniel, as the books ascribed to Moses, 
Joshua, Samuel, &c. &c. prove they were not written by Moses, 
Joshua, Samuel, &c. 

Secondly, Because they were not written till after the Babylonish 
captivity began ; and there is good reason to believe, that not any 
book in the Bible was written before that period : at least, it is prove- 
able, from the books themselves, as I have already shown, that they 
were not written till after the commencement of the Jewish 
monarchy. 

Thirdly, Because the manner in which the books ascribed to 
Ezekiel and Daniel are written, agrees with the condition these 
men were in at the time of writing them. 

Had the numerous commentators and priests, who have foolish- 
ly employed or wasted their time in pretending to expound and 
unriddle those books, have been carried into captivity, as Ezekiel 
and Daniel were, it would have greatly improved their intellects, 
in comprehending the reason for this mode of writing, and have 



118 THE AGE OP REASON* [PART II. 

saved them the trouble of racking their invention, as they have 
done, to no purpose ; for they would have found that themselves 
would be obliged to write whatever they had to write, respecting 
their own affairs, or those of their friends, or of their country* 
in a concealed manner, as those men have done. 

These two books differ from all the rest ; for it is only these 
that are filled with accounts of dreams and visions : and this 
difference arose from the situation the writers were in as 
prisoners of war, or prisoners of state, in a foreign country, which 
obliged them to convey even the most trifling information to each 
other, and all their political projects or opinions, in obscure and 
metaphorical terms. They pretend to have dreamed dreams, and 
seen visions, because it was unsafe for them to speak facts or 
plain language. We ought, however, to suppose, that the persons 
to whom they wrote, understood what they meant, and that it was 
not intended any body else should. But these busy commentators 
and priests have been puzzling their wits to find out what it was 
not intended they should know, and with which they have nothing 
to do. 

Ezekiel and Daniel were carried prisoners to Babylon, under 
the first captivity, in the time of Jehoiakim, nine years before the 
second captivity in the time of Zedekiah. The Jews were then 
still numerous, and had considerable force at Jerusalem ; and as it 
is natural to suppose that men in the situation of Ezekiel and Dan- 
iel, would be meditating the recovery of their country, and their 
own deliverance, it is reasonable to suppose, that the accounts of 
dreams and visions, with which these books are filled, are no other 
than a disguised mode of correspondence, to facilitate those ob- 
jects : it served them as a cypher, or secret alphabet. If they are 
not this, they are tales, reveries, and nonsense ; or, at least, a fan- 
ciful way of wearing off the wearisomeness of captivity ; but the 
presumption is, they were the former. 

Ezekiel begins his books by speaking of a vision of cherubims, 
and of a wheel within a wheel, which he says he saw by the river 
Chebar, in the land of his captivity. Is it not reasonable to sup- 
pose, that by the cherubims, he meant the temple at Jerusalem, 
where they had figures of cherubims 1 and by a wheel within a 
wheel (which, as a figure, has always been understood to signify 
political contrivance) the project or means of recovering Jerusa- 
lem'? In the latter part of this book, he supposes himself trans* 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 119 

ported to Jerusalem, and into the temple ; and he refers back to 
the vision on the river Chebar, and says, (chap, xliii. ver. 3,) that 
this last vision was like the vision on the river Chebar ; which in- 
dicates, that those pretended dreams and visions had for their ob- 
ject the recovery of Jerusalem, and nothing further. 

As to the romantic interpretations and applications, wild as the 
dreams and visions they undertake to explain, which commentators 
and priests have made of those books, that of converting them 
into things which they call prophecies, and making them bend to 
times and circumstances, as far remote even as the present day, 
it shows the fraud or the extreme folly to which credulity or priest- 
craft can go. 

Scarcely any thing can be more absurd, than to suppose that men 
situated as Ezekiel and Daniel were, whose country was over-run, 
and in the possession of the enemy, all their friends and relations 
in captivity abroad, or in slavery at home, or massacred, or in con- 
tinual danger of it ; scarcely any thing, I say, can be more absurd, 
than to suppose that such men should find nothing to do but that 
of employing their time and their thoughts about what was to hap- 
pen to other nations a thousand or two thousand years after they 
were dead ; at the same time, nothing is more natural, than that 
they should meditate the recovery of Jerusalem, and their own 
deliverance ; and that this was the sole object of all the obscure 
and apparently frantic writings contained in those books. 

In this sense, the mode of writing used in those two books being 
forced by necessity, and not adopted by choice, is not irrational ; 
but if we are to use the books as prophecies, they are false. In 
the 29th chapter of Ezekiel, speaking of Egypt, it is said, (ver. 11,) 
" Ao foot of man should pass through it, nor foot of beast should 
pass through' it; neither shall it be inhabited for forty years. 11 
This is what never came to pass, and consequently it is false, as 
all the books I have already reviewed are. I here close this Ipart 
of the subject. 

In the former part of the Age of Reason I have spoken of Jonah, 
and of the story of him and the whale. A fit story for ridicule, if 
it was written to be believed ; or of laughter, if it was intended to 
try what credulity could swallow ; for if it could swallow Jonah 
and the whale, it could swallow any thing. 

But, as is already shown in the observations on the book of Job, 
and of Proverbs, it is not always certain which of the books in the 



120 THE AGE OF REASON. £PART II. 

Bible are originally Hebrew or only translations from books of the 
Gentiles into Hebrew ; and, as the book of Jonah, so far from 
treating of the affairs of the Jews, says nothing upon that subject, 
but treats altogether of the Gentiles, it is more probable that it is 
a book of the Gentiles than of the Jews ; and that it has been 
written as a fable, to expose the nonsense and satirise the vicious 
and malignant character of a Bible prophet, or a predicting priest. 

Jonah is represented, first, as a disobedient prophet, running 
away from his mission, and taking shelter aboard a vessel of the 
Gentiles, bound from Joppa to Tarshish ; as if he ignorantly sup- 
posed, by such a paltry contrivance, he could hide himself where 
God could not find him. The vessel is overtaken by a storm at 
sea ; and the mariners, all of whom are Gentiles, believing it to 
be a judgment, on account of some one on board who had com- 
mitted a crime, agreed to cast lots, to discover the offender ; and 
the lot fell upon Jonah. But, before this, they had cast all their 
wares and merchandise overboard, to lighten the vessel, while 
Jonah, like a stupid fellow, was fast asleep in the hold. 

After the lot had designated Jonah to be the offender, they ques- 
tioned him to know who and what he was/? and he told them he 
tuas an Hebrew ; and the story implies that he confessed himself 
to be guilty. But these Gentiles instead of sacrificing him at 
once, without pity or mercy, as a company of Bible-prophets or 
priests would have done by a Gentile in the same case, and as it 
is related Samuel had done by A gag, and Moses by the women 
and children, they endeavoured to save him, though at the risk of 
their own lives ; for the account says, " Nevertheless (that is, 
though Jonah was a Jew, and a foreigner, and the cause of all their 
misfortunes, and the loss of their cargo) the men rowed hard to 
bring the boat to land, but they could not, for the sea wrought and 
was tempestuous against them." Still, however, they were unwill- 
ing to put the fate of the lot into execution ; and they cried (says 
the account) unto the Lord, saying, " We beseech thee, O Lord, 
let us not perish for this man'' s life, and lay not upon us innocent 
blood; for thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee." Meaning 
thereby, that they did not presume to judge Jonah guilty, since 
that he might be innocent ; but that they considered the lot that 
had fallen upon him as a decree of God, or as it pleased God. 
The address of this prayer shows that the Gentiles worshipped one 
Supreme fieing, and that they were not idolators, as the Jev/i 



PART II.] TBE AGE OF REASON. 121 

represented them to be. But the storm still continuing, and the 
danger increasing, they put the fate of the lot into execution, and 
cast Jonah into the sea ; where, according to the story, a great 
fish swallowed him up whole and alive. 

We have now to consider Jonah securely housed from the 
storm in the fish's belly. Here we are told that he prayed ; but 
the prayer is a made-up prayer, taken from various parts of the 
Psalms, without any connexion or consistency, and adapted to the 
distress, but not at all to the condition, that Jonah was in. It is 
such a prayer as a Gentile, who might know something of the 
Psalms, could copy out for him. This circumstance alone, were 
there no other, is sufficient to indicate that the whole is a made-up 
story. The prayer, however, is supposed to have answered the 
purpose, and the story goes on, (taking up at the same time the 
cant language of a Bible prophet,) saying, " The Lord spake unto 
the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon dry land:" 

Jonah then received a second mission to Ninevah, with which 
he sets out ; and we have now to consider him as a preacher. 
The distress he is represented to have suffered, the remembrance 
of his own disobedience as the cause of it, and the miraculous 
escape he is supposed to have had, were sufficient, one would con- 
ceive, to have impressed him with sympathy and benevolence in 
the execution of his mission ; but, instead of this, he enters the 
city with denunciation and malediction in his mouth, crying, " Yet 
forty days, and Ninevah shall be overthrown." 

We have now to consider this supposed missionary in the 
last act of his mission ; and here it is that the malevolent spirit 
of a Bible-prophet, or of a predicting priest, appears in all that 
. blackness of character, that men ascribe to the being they call 
the devil. 

Having published his predictions, he withdrew, says the story, 
to the east side of the city. But for what 1 not to contemplate, in 
retirement, the mercy of his Creator to himself, or to others, but 
to wait with malignant impatience, the destruction of Ninevah. It 
came to pass, however, as the story relates, that the Ninevites 
reformed, and that God, according to the Bible phrase, repented 
him of the evil he had said he would do unto them, and did it not, 
This, saith the first verse of the last chapter, displeased Jonah 
exceedingly and he was very angry. His obdurate heart woul4 
rather that all Ninevah should be destroyed, and eyery soul, young 

1§ 



122 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II. 

and old, perish in its ruins, than that his prediction should not 
be fulfilled. To expose the character of a prophet still more, a 
gourd is made to grow up in the night, that promises him an agree- 
able shelter from the heat of the sun, in the place to which he is 
retired ; and the next morning it dies. 

Here the rage of the prophet becomes excessive, and he is 
ready to destroy himself. " It is better, said he, for me to die than 
to live." This brings on a supposed expostulation between the 
Almighty and the prophet ; in which the former says, " Doest thou 
well to be angry for the gourd ? And Jonah said, I do well to be 
angry even unto death ; Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity 
on the gourd, for which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it 
to grow, which came up in a night, and perished in a night ; and 
should not I spare JVinevah, that great city, in which are more than 
threescore thousand persons, that cannot discern between their 
right hand and their left ?" 

Here is both the winding up of the satire, and the moral of the 
fable. As a satire, it strikes against the character of all the Bible- 
prophets, and against all the indiscriminate judgments upon men, 
women, and children, with which this lying book, the Bible, is 
crowded ; such as Noah's flood, the destruction of the cities of 
Sodom and Gomorrah, the extirpation of the Canaanites, even to 
sucking infants, and women with child, because the same reflec- 
tion, that there are more than threescore thousand, persons that can- 
not discern between their right hand and their left, meaning young 
children, applies to all their cases. It satirizes also the supposed 
partiality of the Creator, for one nation more than for another. 

As a moral, it preaches against the malevolent spirit of predic- 
tion ; for as certainly as a man predicts ill, he becomes inclined to 
wish it. The pride of having his judgment right, hardens his 
heart, till at last he beholds with satisfaction, or sees with disap- 
pointment, the accomplishment or the failure of his predictions. 
This book ends with the same kind of strong and well-directed 
point against prophets, prophecies, and indiscriminate judgments, 
as the chapter that Benjamin Franklin made for the Bible, about 
Abraham and the stranger, ends against the intolerant spirit of 
religious persecution. Thus much for the book Jonah. 

Of the poetical parts of the Bible, that are called prophecies, I 
have spoken in the former part of the Age of Reason, and already 
in this : where I have said that the word prophet is the Bible word 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 123 

for poet ; and that the flights and metaphors of those poets, many 
of which have become obscure by the lapse of time and the 
change of circumstances, have been ridiculously erected into 
things called prophecies, and applied to purposes the writers never 
thought of. When a priest quotes any of those passages, he 
unriddles it agreeably to his own views, and imposes that expla- 
nation upon his congregation as the meaning of the writer. The 
whore of Babylon has been the common whore of all the priests, 
and each has accused the other of keeping the strumpet ; so well 
do they agree in their explanations. 

There now remain only a few books, which they call the books 
of the lesser prophets ; and as I have already shown that the 
greater are impostors, it would be cowardice to disturb the repose 
of the little ones. Let them sleep, then, in the arms of their 
nurses, the priests, and both be forgotten together. 

I have now gone through the Bible, as a man would go through 
a wood with an axe on his shoulder, and fell trees. Here they lie ; 
and the priests, if they can, may replant them. They may, pre- 
haps, stick them in the ground, but they will never make them 
grow. — I pass on to the books of the New Testament. 

THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

The New Testament, they tell us, is founded upon the pro- 
phecies of the Old ; if so, it must follow the fate of its founda- 
tion. 

As it is nothing extraordinary that a woman should be with child 
before she was married, and that the son she might bring forth 
should be executed, even unjustly, I see no reason for not believ- 
ing that such a woman as Mary, and such a man as J oseph, and 
Jesus, existed ; their mere existence is a matter of indifference, 
about which there is no ground either to believe or to disbelieve, 
and which comes under the common head of, It may be so ; and 
what then ? The probability, however, is, that there were such 
persons, or at least such as resembled them in part of the circum- 
stances, because almost all romantic stories have been suggested 
by some actual circumstance ; as the adventures of Robinson 
Crusoe, not a word of which is true, were suggested by the case 
of Alexander Selkirk. 



124 THE AGE OF REASON* [PART II* 

It is not then the existence, or non-existence, of the persons 
that I trouble myself about ; it is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told 
in the New Testament, and the wild and visionary doctrine raised 
thereon against which I contend. The story, taking it as it is told, 
is blasphemously obscene. It gives an account of a young woman 
engaged to be married, and while under this engagement, she is, 
to speak plain language, debauched by a ghost, under the impious 
pretence, (Luke, chap. i. ver. 35,) that " the Holy Ghost shall 
come upon thee f and the power of the Highest shall overshadow 
thee." Notwithstanding which, Joseph afterwards marries her, 
cohabits with her as his wife, and in his turn rivals the ghost. 
This is putting the story into intelligible language, and when told 
in this manner, there is not a priest but must be ashamed to 
own it.* 

Obscenity in matters of faith, however wrapped up, is always 
a token of fable and imposture ; for it is necessary to our serious 
belief in God, that we do not connect it with stories that run, as 
this does, into ludicrous interpretations. This story is, upon the 
face of it, the same kind of story as that of Jupiter and Leda, or 
Jupiter and Europa, or any of the amorous adventures of Jupi- 
ter ; and shows, as is already stated in the former part of the Age 
of Reason^ that the Christian faith is built upon the heathen my- 
thology. 

As the historical parts of the New Testament, so far as con- 
cerns Jesus Christ, are confined to a very short space of time, 
less than two years, and all within the same country, and nearly 
to the same spot, the discordance of time, place, and circumstance, 
which detects the fallacy of the books of the Old Testament, and 
proves them to be impositions, cannot be expected to be found 
here in the same abundance. The New Testament compared 
with the Old, is like a farce of one act, in which there is not room 
for very numerous violations of the unities. There are, however, 
some glaring contradictions, which, exclusive of the fallacy of the 
pretended prophecies, are sufficient to show the story of Jesus 
Christ to be false. 

I lay it down as a position which cannot be controverted, first, . 
that the agreement of all the parts of a story does not prove that 

* Mary, the supposed virgin mother of Jesus, had several other children) 
Soils arid daughters. See Matt. chap. xiii. 55, 56. 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 125 

story to be true, because the parts may agree, and the whole may 
be false ; secondly, that the disagreement of the parts of a story 
proves the whole cannot be true. The agreement does not prove 
truth, but the disagreement pioves falsehood positively 

The history of Jesus Christ is contained in the four books as- 
cribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The first chapter of 
Matthew begins with giving a genealogy of Jesus Christ ; and in 
the third chapter of Luke, there is also given a genealogy of Jesus 
Christ. Did these two agree, it would not prove the genealogy 
to be true, because it might, nevertheless, be a fabrication ; but as 
they contradict each other in every particular, it proves falsehood 
absolutely. If Matthew speaks truth, Luke speaks falsehood ; 
and if Luke speaks truth, Matthew speaks falsehood ; and as there 
is no authority for believing one more than the other, there is no 
authority for believing either ; and if they cannot be believed even 
in the very first thing they say, and set out to prove, they are not 
entitled to be believed in any thing they say afterwards. Truth is an 
uniform thing ; and as to inspiration and revelation, were we to 
admit it, it is impossible to suppose it can be contradictory. 
Either then the men called apostles were imposters, or the books 
ascribed to them have been written by other persons, and fathered 
upon them, as is the case in the Old Testament. 

The book of Matthew gives, chap. i. ver. 6, a genealogy by 
name from David, up through Joseph, the husband of Mary, to 
Christ : and makes there to be twenty-eight generations. The 
book of Luke gives also a genealogy by name from Christ, through 
Joseph, the husband of Mary, down to David, and makes there to 
be forty-three generations ; besides which, there are only the two 
names of David and Joseph that are alike in the two lists. I 
here insert both genealogical lists, and for the sake of perspicuity 
and comparison have placed them both in the same direction, that 
is, from Joseph down to David. 



Genealogy, according to 
Matthew. 

Christ 

2 Joseph 

3 Jacob 

4 Matthan 

5 Eleazer 



Genealogy, according to 
Luke. 

Christ 

2 Joseph 

3 Heli 

4 Matthat 

5 Levi 



126 THE AGE 

Genealogy, acording to 
Matthew. 

6 Eliud 

7 Achim 

8 Sadoc 

9 Azor 

10 Eliakim 

11 Abiud 

12 Zorobabel 

13 Salathiel 

14 Jechonias 

15 Josias 

16 Anion 

17 Manasses 

18 Ezekias 

19 Achaz 

20 Joatham 

21 Ozias 

22 Joram 

23 Josaphat 

24 Asa 

25 Abia 

26 Roboam 

27 Solomon 

28 David* 



REASON. [PART II. 

Genealogy, according to 
Luke. 

6 Melchi 

7 Janna 

8 Joseph 

9 Mattathias 

10 Amos 

11 Naum 

12 Esli 

13 Nagge 

14 Maath 

15 Mattathias 

16 Semei 

17 Joseph 

18 Juda 

19 Joanna 

20 Rhesa 

21 Zorobabel 

22 Salathiel 

23 Neri 

24 Melchi 

25 Addi 

26 Cosam 

27 Elmodam 

28 Er 

29 Jose 

30 Eliezer 

31 Jorim 

32 Matthat 

33 Levi 

34 Simeon 

35 Juda 



OF 



* From the birth of David to the birth of Christ is upwards of 1080 years, 
and as the life-time of Christ is not included, there are but 27 full generations. 
To find, therefore, the average age of each person mentioned in the list, at the 
time his first son was born, it is only necessary to divide 108 by 27, which 
gives 40 years for each person. As the life-time of man was then but of the 
same extent it is now, it is an absurdity to suppose, that 27 following genera- 
tions should all be old bachelors, before they married ; and the more so, when 
we are told that Solomon, the next in succession to David, had a house full of 
wives and mistresses before he was twenty-one years of age. So far from 
this genealogy being a solemn truth, it is not even a reasonable lie. The list of 
Luke gives about twenty-six years for the average age, and this is too much. 



PART II.] THE AGE 

Genealogy, according to 
Matthew. 



REASON. 127 

Genealogy, according to 
Luke. 

36 Joseph 

37 Jonan 

38 Elakim 

39 Melea 

40 Menan 

41 Mattatha 

42 Nathan 

43 David 



OF 



Now, if these men, Matthew and Luke, set out with a falsehood 
between them (as these two accounts show they do) in the very 
commencement of their history of Jesus Christ, and of whom, and 
of what he was, what authority (as I have before asked) is there 
left for believing the strange things they tell us afterwards 1 If 
they cannot be believed in their account of his natural genealogy, 
how are we to believe them, when they tell Jis, he was the son of 
God, begotten by a ghost ; and that an angel announced this in 
secret to his mother? If they lied in one genealogy, why are we 
to believe them in the other ? If his natural be manufactured, 
which it certainly is, why are not we to suppose, that his celestial 
genealogy is manufactured also ; and that the whole is fabulous ? 
Can any man of serious reflection hazard his future happiness 
upon the belief of a story naturally impossible ; repugnant to 
every idea of decency ; and related by persons already detected 
of falsehood ? Is it not more safe that we stop ourselves at the 
plain, pure, and unmixed belief of one God, which is deism, than 
that we commit ourselves on an. ocean of improbable, irrational, 
indecent and contradictory tales ? 

The first question, however, upon the books of the New Testa- 
ment, as upon those of the Old, is, are they genuine 1 Were they 
written by the persons to whom they are ascribed 1 for it is upon 
this ground only, that the strange things related therein have been 
credited. Upon this point, there is no direct proof for or against; 
and all that this state of a case proves, is doubtfulness ; and doubt- 
fulness is the opposite of belief. The state, therefore, that the 
books are in, proves against themselves, as far as this kind of 
proof can go. 

But, exclusive of this, the presumption is, that the books called 
the Evangelists, and ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 



1^8 THE AGE OF REASON [PAKT II» 

were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John ; and that 
they are impositions. The disordered state of the history in these 
four books, the silence of one book upon matters related' in the 
other, and the disagreement that is to be found among them, 
implies, that they are the production of some unconnected indi- 
viduals, many years after the things they pretend to relate, each 
of whom made his own legend ; and not the writings of men 
living intimately together, as the men called apostles are sup- 
posed to have done : in fine, that they have been manufactured, 
as the books of the Old Testament have been, by other persons 
than those whose names they bear. 

The story of the angel announcing, what the church calls, the 
immaculate conception, is not so much as mentioned in the books 
ascribed to Mark and John ; and is differently related in Matthew 
and Luke. The former says, the angel appeared to Joseph ; the 
latter says, it was to Mary ; but either, Joseph or Mary, was the 
worst evidence that c^uld have been thought of; for it was others 
that should have testified for £/iem, and not they for themselves. 
Were any girl that is now with child to say, and even to swear it, 
that she was gotten with child by a ghost, and that an angel told 
her so, would she be believed ? Certainly she would not. Why 
then are we to believe the same thing of another girl whom we 
never saw, told by nobody knows who, nor when, nor where ? 
How strange and inconsistent is it, that the same circumstance that 
would weaken the belief even of a probable story, should be given 
as a motive for believing this one, that has upon the face of it 
every token of absolute impossibility and imposture. 

The story of Herod destroying all the children under two years 
old, belongs altogether to the book of Matthew : not one of the 
rest mentions any thing about it. Had such a circumstance been 
true, the universality of it must have made it known to all the 
writers ; and the thing would have been too striking to have been 
omitted by any. This Writer tells us, that Jesus escaped this 
slaughter, because Joseph and Mary were warned by an angel to 
flee with him into Egypt ; but he forgot to make any provision 
for John who was then under two years of age. John, however, 
who staid behind, fared as well as Jesus, who fled ; and, therefore, 
the story circumstantially belies itself. 

Not any two of these writers agree in reciting, exactly in the 
same words, the written inscription, short as it is, which they tell 



PART II.] THE AGE Of* REASON. 129 

us was put over Christ when he was crucified : and besides this, 
Mark says, He was crucified at the third hour, (nine in the morn- 
ing ;) and John says it was the sixth hour, (twelve at noon.*) 
The inscription is thus stated in those books. 

Matthew — This is Jesus the king of the Jews. 

Mark The king of the Jews. 

Luke This is the king of the Jews. 

John Jesus of Nazareth king of the Jews. 

We may infer from these circumstances, trivial as they are, that 
those writers, whoever they were, and in whatever time they lived, 
were not present at the scene. The only one of the men, called 
apostles, who appears to have been near the spot, was Peter, and 
when he was accused of being one of Jesus' followers, it is said, 
(Matthew, chap. xxvi. ver. 74,) " Then Peter began to curse and 
to swear, saying, I know not the man ;" yet we are now called 
upon to believe the same Peter, convicted, by their own account, 
of perjury. For what reason, or on what authority, shall we do 
this? 

The accounts that are given of the circumstances, that they tell 
us attended the crucifixion, are differently related in those four 
books. 

The book ascribed to Matthew says, " There loas darkness over 
all the land from the sixth hour unto the ninth hour — that the veil 
of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom — that 
there was an earthquake — that the rocks rent — that the graves 
opened, that the bodies of many of the saints that slept arose and 
came out of their graves after the resurrection, and went into the 
holy city and appeared unto many." Such is the account which 
this dashing writer of the book of Matthew gives ; but in which he 
is not supported by the writers of the other books. 

The writer of the book ascribed to Mark, in detailing the cir- 
cumstances of the crucifixion, makes no mention of any earth- 
quake, nor of the rocks rending, nor of the graves opening, nor of 
the dead men walking out. The writer of the book of Luke is 
silent also upon the same points. And as to the writer of the 
book of John, though he details all the circumstances of the cruci- 

* According to John, the sentence was not passed till about the sixth hour, 
(noon,) and, consequently, the execution could not be till the afternoon ; but 
Mark says expressly, that he was crucified at the third hour, (nine in the 
morning,) chap. xv. 25 ; John chap. xix. ver. 14. 

17 



130 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART H. 

fixion down to the burial of Christ, he says nothing about either 
the darkness — the veil of the temple—the earthquake — the 
rocks — the graves — nor the dead men. 

Now if it had been true, that those things had happened ; and 
if the writers of these books had lived at the time they did happen, 
and had been the persons they are said to be, namely, the four 
men called apostles, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it was not 
possible for them, as true historians, even without the aid of 
inspiration, not to have recorded them, The things, supposing 
them to have been facts, were of too much notoriety not to have 
been known, and of too much importance not to have been told. 
All these supposed apostles must have been witnesses of the 
earthquake, if there had been any ; for it was not possible for 
them to have been absent from it ; the opening of the graves and 
resurrection of the dead men, and their walking about the city is of 
greater importance than the earthquake, An earthquake is 
always possible, and natural, and proves nothing ; but this open- 
ing of the graves is supernatural, and directly in point to their 
doctrine, their cause, and their apostleship. Had it been true, it 
would have rilled up whole chapters of those books, and been the 
chosen theme and general chorus of all the writers ; but instead of 
this, little and trivial things, and mere prattling conversations of, 
he said this, and she said that, are often tediously detailed, while 
this most important of all, had it been true, is passed off in a slov- 
enly manner by a single dash of the pen, and that by one writes* 
only, and not so much as hinted at by the rest. 

It is an easy thing to tell a lie, but it is difficult to support the 
lie after it is told. The writer of the book of Matthew should 
have told us who the saints were that came to life again, and 
went into the city, and what became of them afterwards, and who 
it was that saw them ; for he is not hardy enough to say he saw 
them himself ; whether they came out naked, and all in natural 
buff, he-saints and she-saints ; or whether they came full dressed, 
and where they got their dresses ; whether they went to their 
former habitations, and reclaimed their wives, their husbands, and 
their property, and how they were received ; whether they entered 
ejectments for the recovery of their possessions, or brought actions 
of crim. con. against the rival interlopers ; whether they remained 
on earth, and followed their former occupation of preaching or 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 131 

working ; or whether they died again, or went back to their graves 
alive, and buried themselves. 

Strange indeed, that an army of saints should return to life, and 
nobody know who they were, nor who it was that saw them, and 
that not a word more should be said upon the subject, nor these 
saints have any thing to tell us ! Had it been the prophets who 
(as we are told) had formerly prophesied of these things, they 
must have had a great deal to say. They could have told us 
every thing, and we should have had posthumous prophecies, 
with notes and commentaries upon the first, a little better at least 
than we have now. Had it been Moses, and Aaron, and Joshua, 
and Samuel, and David, not an unconverted Jew had remained in 
all Jerusalem. Had it been John the Baptist, and the saints of 
the time then present, every body would have known them, and 
they would have out-preached and out-famed all the other apostles. 
But, instead of this, these saints are made to pop up, like Jonah's 
gourd in the night, for no purpose at all but to wither in the 
morning. Thus much for this part of the story. 

The tale of the resurrection follows that of the crucifixion ; and 
in this as well as in that, the writers, whoever they were, disagree 
so much, as to make it evident that none of them were there. 

The book of Matthew states, that when Christ was put in the 
sepulchre, the Jews applied to Pilate for a watch or a guard to be 
placed over the sepulchre, to prevent the body being stolen by the 
disciples ; and that, in consequence of this request, the sepulchre 
was made sure % sealing the stone that covered the mouth, and 
setting a watch. But the other books say nothing about this ap- 
plication, nor about the sealing, nor the guard, nor the watch ; 
and according to their accounts, there were none*. Matthew, 
however, follows up this part of the story of the guard or the 
watch with a second part, that I shall notice in the conclusion, 
as it serves to detect the fallacy of those books. 

The book of Matthew continues its account, and says, (chap, 
xxviii. ver. 1,) that at the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn, 
towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the 
other Mary, to see the sepulchre. Mark says it was sun-rising, 
and John says it was dark. Luke says it was Mary Magdalene 
and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women, 
that came to the sepulchre ; and John states, that Mary Magda- 
lene came alone. So well do they agree about their first evi- 



132 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II. 

dence ! they all, however, appear to have known most about Mary 
Magdalene ; she was a woman of a large acquaintance, and it 
was not an ill conjecture that she might be upon the stroll. 

The book of Matthew goes on to say, (ver. 2,) " And behold 
there was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended 
from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, 
and sat upon it." But the other books say nothing about any 
earthquake, nor about the angel rolling back the stone, and sittings 
upon it ; and, according to their account, there was no angel 
sitting there. Mark says the angel was within the sepulchre, 
sitting on the right side. Luke says there were two, and they 
were both standing up ; and John says they were both sitting 
down, one at the head and the other at the feet. 

Matthew says, that the angel that was sitting upon the stone on 
the outside of the sepulchre, told the two Marys that Christ was 
risen, and that the women went away quickly. Mark says, that 
the women, upon seeing the stone rolled away, and wondering at 
it, went into the sepulchre, and that it was the angel that was 
sitting within on the right side, that told them so. Luke says, it 
was the two angels that were standing up ; and John says, it was 
Jesus Christ himself that told it to Mary Magdalene ; and that 
she did not go into the sepulchre, but only stooped down and 
looked in. 

Now, if the writers of these four books had gone into a court 
of Justice to prove an alibi, (for it is of the nature of an alibi that 
is here attempted to be proved, namely, the absence of a dead 
body by supernatural means,) and had they given their evidence 
in the same contradictory manner as it is here given, they would 
have been in danger of having their ears cropt for perjury, and 
would have justly deserved it. Yet this is the evidence, and these 
are the books, that have been imposed upon the world, as being 
given by divine inspiration, and as the unchangeable word of 
God. 

The writer of the book of Matthew, after giving this account, 
relates a story that is not to be found in any of the other books, 
and which is the same I have just before alluded to. 

" Now," says he, (that is, after the conversation the women had 
had with the angel sitting upon the stone,) " behold some of the 
watch (meaning the watch that he had said had been placed over 
the sepulchre) came into the city, and showed unto the chief 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 133 

priests all the things that were done ; and when they were assem- 
bled with the elders and had taken counsel, they gave large money 
unto the soldiers, saying, Say ye, that his disciples came by night, 
and stole him away while we slept ; and if this come to the gov- 
ernor's ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took 
the money, and did as they were taught ; and this saying (that his 
disciples stole him away) is commonly reported among the Jews 
until this day." 

The expression, until this day, is an evidence that the book 
ascribed to Matthew was not written by Matthew, and that it has 
been manufactured long after the times and things of which it pre- 
tends to treat ; for the expression implies a great length of inter- 
vening time. It would be inconsistent in us to speak in this man- 
ner of any thing happening in our own time. To give, therefore, 
intelligible meaning to the expression, we must suppose a lapse of 
some generations at least, for this manner of speaking carries the 
mind back to ancient time. 

The absurdity also of the story is worth noticing ; for it shows 
the writer of the book of Matthew to have been an exceedingly 
weak and foolish man. He tells a story that contradicts itself in 
point of possibility ; for though the guard, if there were any, might 
be made to say that the body was taken away while they were 
asleep, and to give that as a reason for their not having prevented 
it, that same sleep must also have prevented their knowing how, 
and by whom it was done ; and yet they are made to say, that it 
was the disciples who did it. Were a man to tender his evidence 
of something that he should say was done, and of the manner of 
doing it, and of the person who did it while he was asleep, and 
could know nothing of the matter, such evidence could not be re- 
ceived ; it will do well enough for Testament evidence, but not 
for any thing where truth is concerned. 

I come now to that part of the evidence in those books, that 
respects the pretended appearance of Christ after this pretended 
resurrection. 

The writer of the book of Matthew relates, that the angel that 
was sitting on the stone at the mouth of the sepulchre, said to the 
two Marys, chap, xxviii. ver. 7, " Behold Christ is gone before 
you into Galilee, there ye shall see him ; lo, I have told you." And 
the same writer at the two next verses, (8, 9,) makes Christ him- 
self to speak to the same purpose to these women immediately 



134 THE AGE OP REASON. [PART II. 

after the angel had told it to them, and that they ran quickly to tell 
it to the disciples ; and at the 16th verse it is said, "T/ien the eleven 
disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain were Jesus had 
appointed them : and, when they saw him, they worshipped him." 

But the writer of the book of John tells us a story very differ- 
ent to this ; for he says, chap. xx. ver. 19, " Then the same day 
at evening, being the first day of the week, (that is, the same day 
that Christ is said to have risen,) when the doors were shut, where 
the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and 
stood in the midst of them. 

According to Matthew the eleven were marching to Galilee, to 
meet Jesus in a mountain, by his own appointment, at the very 
time when, according to John, they were 'assembled in another 
place, and that not by appointment but in secret, for fear of the 
Jews. 

The writer of the book of Luke contradicts that of Matthew 
more pointedly than John does ; for he says expressly, that the 
meeting was in Jerusalem the evening of the same day that he 
(Christ) rose, and that the eleven were there. See Luke, chap, 
xxiv. ver. 13, 33. 

Now, it is not possible, unless we admit these supposed disci- 
ples the right of wilful lying, that the writer of these books could 
be any of the eleven persons called disciples : for if, according to 
Matthew, the eleven went into Galilee to meet Jesus in a mountain 
by his own appointment, on the same day that he is said to have 
risen. Luke and John must have been two of that eleven ; yet the 
writer of Luke says expressly, and John implies as much, that the 
meeting was that same day, in a house in Jerusalem ; and, on the 
other hand, if, according to Luke and John, the eleven were as- 
sembled in a house in Jerusalem, Matthew must have been one of 
that eleven ; yet Matthew says, the meeting was in a mountain in 
Galilee, and consequently the evidence given in those books de- 
stroys each other. 

The writer of the book of Mark says nothing about any meet- 
ing in Galilee ; but he says, chap. xvi. ver. 12, that Christ, after 
his resurrection, appeared in another form to two of them, as they 
walked into the country, and that these two told it to the residue 
who would not believe them. Luke also tells a story, in which 
he keeps Christ employed the whole of the day of this pretended 
resurrection, until the evening, and which totally invalidates the 



PART II.] THE A GE OF REASON, 135 

account of going to the mountain in Galilee. He says, that two 
of them, without saying which two, went that same day to a village 
called Emmaus, threescore furlongs (seven miles and a half) from 
Jerusalem, and that Christ, in disguise, went with them, and staid 
with them unto the evening, and supped with them, and then 
vanished out of their sight, and re-appeared that same evening, at 
the meeting of the eleven in Jerusalem. 

This is the contradictory manner in which the evidence of this 
pretended re-appearance of Christ is stated ; the only point in 
which the writers agree, is the skulking privacy of that re-appear- 
ance ; for whether it was in the recess of a mountain in Galilee, 
or in a shut-up house in Jerusalem, it was still skulking. To 
what cause then are we to assign this skulking ? On the one 
hand, it is directly repugnant to the supposed or pretended end- 
that of convincing the world that Christ was risen ; and, on the 
other hand, to have asserted the publicity of it, would have exposed 
the writers of those books to public detection, and, therefore, they 
have been under the necessity of making it a private affair. 

As to the account of Christ being seen by more than five hun- 
dred at once, it is Paul only who says it, and not the five hundred 
who say it for themselves. It is, therefore, the testimony of but 
one man, and that too of a man, who did not, according to the 
same account, believe a word of the matter himself, at the time it 
is said to have happened. His evidence, supposing him to have 
been the writer of the 15th chapter of Corinthians, where this 
account is given, is like that of a man who comes into a court of 
justice to swear, that what he had sworn before is false. A man 
may often see reason, and he has, too, always the right of chang- 
ing his opinion ; but this liberty does not extend to matters of 
fact. 

I now come to the last scene, that of the ascension into heaven. 
Here all fear of the Jews, and of every thing else, must necessa- 
rily have been out of the question : it was that which, if true, was 
to seal the whole ; and upon which the reality of the future mis- 
sion of the disciples was to rest for proof. Words, whether 
declarations or promises, that passed in private, either in the recess 
of a mountain in Galilee, or in a shut-up house in Jerusalem, even 
supposing them to have been spoken, could not be evidence in 
public ; it was therefore necessary that this last scene should 
preclude the possibility of denial and dispute ; and that it should 



136 THE AGE G£ REASON. [PART Hi 

be, as I have stated in the former part of the Age of Reason, as 
public and as visible as the sun at noon day : at least it ought to 
have been as public as the crucifixion is reported to have been. 
But to come to the point. 

In the first place the writer of the book of Matthew does not 
say a syllable about it ; neither does the writer of the book of 
John. This being the case, is it possible to suppose that those 
writers, who affect to be even minute in other matters, would 
have been silent upon this, had it been true ? The writer of the 
book of Mark passes it off in a careless, slovenly manner, with a 
single dash of the pen, as if he was tired of romancing, or 
ashamed of the story. So also does the writer of Luke. And 
even between these two, there is not an apparent agreement, as to 
the place where this final parting is said to have been. 

The book of Mark says, that Christ appeared to the eleven as 
they sat at meat ; alluding to the meeting of the eleven at Jeru- 
salem : he then states the conversation that he says passed at that 
meeting ; and immediately after says, (as a school-boy would 
finish a dull story,) " So then> after the Lord had spoken unto 
them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand 
of God." But the writer of Luke says, that the ascension was 
from Bethany ; that he (Christ) led them out as far as Bethany, 
and was parted from them there, and was carried up into heaven* 
So also was Mahomet: and, as to Moses, the apostle Jude says, 
ver. 9, That Michael and the devil disputed about his body* 
While we believe such fables as these, or either of them, we 
believe unworthily of the Almighty. 

I have now gone through the examination of the four books 
ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and when it is 
considered that the whole space of time from the crucifixion to 
what is called the ascension, is but a few days, apparently not 
more than three or four, and that all the circumstances are said 
to have happened nearly about the same spot, Jerusalem ; it is, 
I believe, impossible to find, in any story upon record, so many 
and such glaring absurdities, contradictions, and falsehoods, as are 
in those books. They are more numerous and striking than 1 
had any expectation of finding, when I began this examination, 
and far more so than I had any idea of when I wrote the former part 
of the Age of Reason. I had then neither Bible nor Testament to 
refer to, nor could I procure any. My own situation, even as to 



TART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 137 

existence, was becoming every day more precarious ; and as I was 
willing to leave something behind me upon the subject, I was 
obliged to be quick and concise. The quotations I then made 
were from memory only, but they are correct ; and the opinions 
I have advanced in that work are the effect of the most clear and 
long-established conviction — that the Bible and the Testament 
are impositions upon the world — that the fall of man — the account 
of Jesus Christ being the Son of God, and of his dying to appease 
the wrath of God, and of salvation by that strange means, are all 
fabulous inventions, dishonourable to the wisdom and power of 
the Almighty — that the only true religon is Deism, by which I then 
meant, and now mean, the belief of one God, and an imitation of 
his moral character, or the practice of what are called moral 
virtues — and that it was upon this only (so far as religion is con- 
cerned) that I rested all my hopes of happiness hereafter. So 
say I now — and so help me God. 

But to return to the subject. — Though it is impossible, at this 
distance of time, to ascertain as a fact who were the writers of 
those four books (and this alone is sufficient to hold them in doubt, 
and where we doubt we do not believe) it is not difficult to ascer- 
tain negatively that they were not written by the persons to whom 
they are ascribed. The contradictions in those books demon- 
strate two things : 

First, that the writers cannot have been eye-witnesses and ear- 
witnesses of the matters they relate, or they would have related 
them without those contradictions ; and, consequently, that the 
books have not been written by the persons called apostles, who 
are supposed to have been witnesses of this kind. 

Secondly, that the writers, whoever they were, have not acted 
in concerted imposition, but each writer separately and indi- 
vidually for himself, and without the knowledge of the other. 

The same evidence that applies to prove the one, applies 
equally to prove both cases ; that is, that the books were not writ- 
ten by the men called apostles, and also that they are not a 
concerted imposition. As to inspiration, it is altogether out of the 
question ; we may as well attempt to unite truth and falsehood^ 
as inspiration and contradiction. 

. If four men are eye-witnesses and ear- witnesses to a scene, they 
will, without any concert between them, agree as to time and 
place, when and where that scene happened. Their individual 

18 



138 THE AGE r OF REASON. [PART II. 

knowledge of the thing, each one knowing it for himself, renders 
concert totally unnecessary ; the one will not say it was in a 
mountain in the country, and the other at a house in town : the 
one will not say it was at sun-rise, and the other that it was dark. 
For in whatever place it was, at whatever time it was, they 
know it equally alike. 

And, on the other hand, if four men concert a story, they will 
make their separate relations of that story agree, and corrobo- 
rate with each other to support the whole. That concert supplies 
the want of fact in the one case, as the knowledge of the fact 
supercedes, in the other case, the necessity of a concert. The 
same contradictions, therefore, that prove there has been no con- 
cert, prove, also, that the reporters had no knowledge of the fact, 
(or rather of that which they relate as a fact,) and detect also the 
falsehood of their reports. Those books, therefore, have neither 
been written by the men called apostles, nor by impostors in con- 
cert. How then have they been written 1 

I am not one of those who are fond of believing there is much 
of that which is called wilful lying, or lying originally ; except in 
the case of men setting up to be prophets, as in the Old Testa- 
ment : for prophesying is lying professionally. In almost all 
other cases, it is not difficult to discover the progress, by which 
even simple supposition, with the aid of credulity, will, in time, 
grow into a lie, and at last be told as a fact ; and whenever we 
can find a charitable reason for a thing of this kind, we ought 
not to indulga a severe one. 

The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead, is the 
story of an apparition, such as timid imaginations can always cre- 
ate in vision, and credulity believe. Stories of this kind had been 
told of the assassination of Julius Caesar, not many years before* 
and they generally have their origin in violent deaths, or in the ex- 
ecution of innocent persons. In cases of this kind, compassion 
lends its aid, and benevolently stretches the story. It goes on a 
little and a little further, till it becomes a most certain truth. Once 
start a ghost, and credulity fills up the history of its life, and 
assigns the cause of its appearance ! one tells it one way, another 
another way, till there are as many stories about the ghost and 
about the proprietor of the ghost, as there are about Jesus Christ 
in these four books. 



f 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 139 

The story of the appearance of Jesus Christ is told with that 
strange mixture of the natural and impossible, that distinguishes 
legendary tale from fact. He is represented as suddenly coming- 
in and going out when the doors are shut, and of vanishing out ot 
sight, and appearing again, as one would conceive of an unsub- 
stantial vision ; then again he is hungry, sits down to meat, and 
eats his supper. But as those who tell stories of this kind, never 
provide for all the cases, so it is here : they have told us, that 
when he arose he left his grave clothes behind him ; but they have 
forgotten to provide other clothes for him to appear in afterwards, 
or tell to us what he did with them when he ascended ; whether he 
stripped all off, or went up clothes and all. In the case of Elijah, 
they have been careful enough to make him throw down his man- 
tle ; how it happened not to be burnt in the chariot of fire, they 
also have not told us. But as imagination supplies all deficiencies 
of this kind, we may suppose if we please, that it was made of 
salamander's wool. 

Those who are not much acquainted with ecclesiastical history, 
may suppose that the book called the New Testament has existed 
ever since the time of Jesus Christ, as they suppose that the 
books ascribed to Moses have existed ever since the time of 
Moses. But the fact is historically otherwise ; there was no such 
book as the New Testament till more than three hundred years 
after the time that Christ is said to have lived. 

At what time the books ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and 
John, began to appear, is altogether a matter of uncertainty. 
There is not the least shadow of evidence of who the persons 
were that wrote them, nor at what time they were written ; and they 
might as well have been called by the names of any of the other 
supposed apostles, as by the names they are now called. The 
originals are not in the possession of any Christian Church exist- 
ing, any more than the two tables of stone written on, they pretend, 
by the finger of God, upon mount Sinai, and given to Moses, are 
in the possession of the Jews. And even if they were, there is no 
possibility of proving the hand writing in either case. At the time 
those books were written there was no printing, and consequently 
there could be no publication, otherwise than by written copies, 
which any man might make or alter at pleasure, and call them 
originals. Can we suppose it is consistent with the wisdom of the 
Almighty, to commit himself and his will to man, upon such pre- 



140 



THE AGE OF REASON, 



[PART II, 



carious means as these, or that it is consistent we should pin our 
faith upon such uncertainties 1 We cannot make nor alter, nor 
eyen imitate so much as one blade of grass that he has made, 
and yet we can make or alter words of God as easily as words 
of man.* 

About three hundred and fifty years after the time that Christ is 
said to have lived, several writings of the kind I am speaking of, 
were scattered in the hands of divers individuals ; and as the 
church had begun to form itself into an hierarchy, or church go- 
vernment, with temporal powers, it set itself about collecting them 
into a code, as we now see them, called The JYeiv Testament. 
They decided by vote, as I have before said in the former part of 
the Age of Reason, which of those writings, out of the collection 
they had made, should be the word of God, and which should not. 
The Rabbins of the Jews had decided, by vote, upon the books of 
the Bible before. 

As the object of the church, as is the case in all national estab- 
lishments of churches, was power and revenue, and terror the 
means it used : it is consistent to suppose, that the most miracu- 
lous and wonderful of the writings they had collected stood the 
best chance of being voted. And as to the authenticity of the books,, 
the vote stands in the place of it ; for it can be traced no higher. 

Disputes, however, ran high among the people then calling 
themselves Christians ; not only as to points of doctrine, but as to 
the authenticity of the books. In the contest between the persons 
called St. Augustine and Fauste, about the year 400, the latter 
says, " The books called the Evangelists have been composed 
long after the times of the apostles, by some obscure men, who, 
fearing that the world would not give credit to their relation of 
matters of which they could not be informed, have published them 
under the names of the apostles ; and which are so full of 

* The former part of the *flge of Reason has- not been published two years, 
and there is already an expession in it that is not mine. The expression is : 
The book of Luke was carried by a majority of one voice only. It may be true, 
but it is not I that have said it. Some person who might know the circum- 
stance, has added it in a note at the bottom of the page of some of the editions, 
printed either in England or in America ; and the printers, after that, have 
erected it into the body of the work, and made me the author of it. If this has 
happened within such a short space of time, notwithstanding the aid of print- 
ing, which prevents the alteration of copies individually ; what may not have, 
happened in much greater length of time, when there was no printing, and 
when any man who could write could make a written copy, and call it an 
original, by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.. 



SART II. J THE AGE OF REASOWi 141 

sottishness and discordant relations, that there is neither agree- 
ment nor connexion between them." 

And in another place, addressing himself to the advocates of 
those books, as being the word of God, he says, " It is thus that 
your predecessors have inserted in the scriptures of our Lord, 
many things, which though they carry his name, agree not with 
his doctrines. This is not surprising, since that we have often 
proved that these things have not been written by himself, nor by 
his apostles, but that for the greatest part they are founded upon. 
tales, upon vague reports, and put together by I know not what, 
half Jews, with but little agreement between them ; and which 
they have nevertheless published under the names of the Apostles 
of our Lord, and have thus attributed to them their own errors and 
their /ies."* 

The reader will see by these extracts, that the authenticity of 
the books of the New Testament was denied, and the books 
treated as tales, forgeries, and lies, at the time they were voted to 
be the word of God. But the interest of the church, with the 
assistance of the faggot, bore down the opposition, and at last 
suppressed all investigation. Miracles followed upon miracles, if 
we will believe them, and men were taught to say they believed 
whether they believed or not. But (by way of throwing in a 
thought) the French Revolution has excommunicated the church 
from the power of working miracles : she has not been able, with 
the assistance of all her saints, to work one miracle since the 
revolution began ; and as she never stood in greater need than 
now, we may, without the aid of devination, conclude, that all her 
former miracles were tricks, and lies.f 

* I have taken these two extracts from Boulanger's Life of Paul, written in 
French ; Boulanger has quoted them from the writings of Augustine against 
Fauste, to which he refers. 

f Boulanger in his Life of Paul, has collected from the ecclesiastical histories, 
and the writings of the fathers as they are called, several matters which show 
the opinions that prevailed among the different sects of Christians, at the time 
the Testament, as we now see it, was voted to be the word of God. The fol- 
lowing extracts are from the second chapter of that work. 

" The Marchionists, (a Christian sect,) assured that the evangelists were 
filled with falsities. The Manicheens, who formed a very numerous sect at the 
commencement of Christianity, rejected as false, all the New Testament; and 
showed other writings quite different that they gave for authentic. The Co- 
rinthians, like the Marcionists, admitted not the Acts of the Apostles. The 
Encratites, and the Sevenians, adopted neither the acts nor the Epistles of Paul. 
Chrysostome, in a homily which he made upon the Acts of the Apostles, says, 
that in his time, about the year 400, many people knew nothing either of the 



142 THE AGE OP REASON* [PART II. 

When we consider the lapse of more than three hundred years 
intervening between the time that Christ is said to have lived and 
the time the new Testament was formed into a book, we must 
see, even without the assistance of historical evidence, the exceed- 
ing uncertainty there is of its authenticity. The authenticity of 
the book of Homer, so far as regards the authorship, is much 
better established than that of the New Testament, though Homer 
is a thousand years the most ancient. It was only an exceeding 
good poet that could have written the book of Homer, and, there- 
fore, few men only could have attempted it ; and a man capable 
of doing it would not have thrown away his own fame by giving it 
to another. In like manner, there were but few that could have 
composed Euclid's Elements, because none but an exceeding 
good geometrician could have been the author of that work. 

But with respect to the books of the New Testament, particu- 
larly such parts as tell us of the resurrection and ascension of 
Christ, any person who could tell a story of an apparition, or of a 
man's walking, could have made such books ; for the story is 
most wretchedly told. The chance, therefore, of forgery in the 
Testament, is millions to one greater than in the case of Homer 
or Euclid. Of the numerous priests or parsons of the present 
day, bishops and all, every one of them can make a sermon, or 
translate a scrap of Latin, especially if it has been translated a 
thousand times before ; but is there any amongst them that can 
write poetry like Homer, of science like Euclid ; the sum total of 
a parson's learning, with very few exceptions, is a 6 a&, and hie, 
/icec, hoc ; and their knowledge of science is three times one is 
three ; and this is more than sufficient to have enabled them, had 
they lived at the time, to have written all the books of the New 
Testament. 

As the opportunities of forgery were greater, so also was the 
inducement. A man could gain no advantage by writing under 
the name of Homer or Euclid ; if he could write equal to them, it 

author or of the book. St. Irene, who lived before that time, reports that the 

Valentinians, like several other sects of the Christians, accused the Scriptures 
of being filled with imperfections, errors a nd contradictions. The Ebionites or 
Nazareens, who were the first Christians, rejected all the Epistles of Paul, and 
regarded him as an impostor. They report among other things, that he was 
originally a Pagan, that he came to Jerusalem, where he lived some time ; and 
that having a mind to marry the daughter of the high priest, he caused him- 
self to be circumcised ; but that not being able to obtain her, he quarrelled 
with the Jews, and wrote against circumcision, and against the observation of 
the sabbath, and against all the legal ordinances." 



PART II. j THE AGE OF REASON. 143 

would be better that he wrote under his own name ; if inferior, he 
could not succeed. Pride would prevent the former, and impos- 
sibility the latter. But with respect to such books as compose the 
New Testament, all the inducements were on the side of forgery. 
The best immagined history that could have been made, at the 
distance of two or three hundred years after the time, could not have 
passed for an original under the name of the real writer ; the only 
chance of success lay in forgery, for the church wanted pretence 
for its new doctrine, and truth and talents were out of the question. 

But as it is not uncommon (as before observed) to relate 
stories of persons walking after they are dead, and of ghosts and 
apparitions of such as have fallen by some violent or extraor- 
dinary means ; and as the people of that day were in the habit of 
believing such things, and of the appearance of angels, and also 
of devils, and of their getting into people's insides, and shaking 
them like a fit of an ague, and of their being cast out again as if by 
an emetic — (Mary Magdalene, the book of Mark tells us, had 
brought up, or been brought to bed of seven devils;) it was no- 
thing extraordinary that some story of this kind should get abroad 
of the person called Jesus Christ, and become afterwards the 
foundation of the four books ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
and John. Each writer told the tale as he heard it, or there- 
abouts, and gave to his book the name of the saint or the apostle 
whom tradition had given as the eye-witness. It is only upon this 
ground that the contradictions in those books can be accounted 
for ; and if this be not the case, they are downright impositions, 
lies, and forgeries, without even the apology of credulity. 

That they have been written by a sort of half Jews, as the fore- 
going quotations mention, is discernable enough. The frequent 
references made to that chief assassin and impostor Moses, and 
to the men called prophets, establishes this point ; and, on the 
other hand, the church has complimented the fraud, by admitting 
the Bible and the Testament to reply to each other. Between the 
Christian Jew and the Christian Gentile, the thing called a pro- 
phecy, and the thing prophesied ; the type and the thing typified ; 
the sign and the thing signified, have been industriously rum- 
maged up, and fitted together like old locks and pick-lock keys. 
The story foolishly enough told of Eve and the serpent, and 
naturally enough as to the enmity between men and serpents, (for 
the serpent always bites about the heel, because it cannot reach 



144 THE AGE OF REASON* [PART II, 

higher ; and the man always knocks the serpent about the head) 
as the most effectual way to prevent its biting ;*) this foolish 
story, I say, has been made into a prophecy, a type, and a promise 
to begin with ; and the lying imposition of Isaiah to Ahaz, That 
a virgin shalt conceive and bear a son, as a sign that Ahaz 
should conquer, when the event was that he was defeated, (as 
already noticed in the observations on the book of Isaiah,) has 
been perverted, and made to serve as a winder-up. 

Jonah and the whale are also made into a sign or a type. 
Jonah is Jesus, and the whale is the grave : for it is said, (and 
they have made Christ to say it of himself,) Matt. chap. xvii. v. 40, 
" For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's 
belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in 
the heart of the earth." But it happens, awkwardly enough* that 
Christ, according to their own account, was but one day and two 
nights in the grave ; about 36 hours, instead of 72 : that is, the 
Friday night, the Saturday, and the Saturday night ; for they say 
he was up on the Sunday morning by sun-rise, or before. But as 
this fits quite as well as the bite and the kick in Genesis, or the v 
virgin and her son in Isaiah, it will pass in the lump of orthodox 
things. Thus much for the historical part of the Testament and 
its evidences. 

Epistles of Paul — The epistles ascribed to Paul, being four- 
teen in number, almost fill up the remaining part of the Testa- 
ment. Whether those epistles were written by the person to 
whom they are ascribed, is a matter of no great importance, since 
the writer, whoever he was, attempts to prove his doctrine by 
argument. He does not pretend to have been witness to any of 
the scenes told of the resurrection and the ascension ; and he 
declares that he had not believed them. 

The story of his being struck to the ground as he was journey- 
ing to Damascus, has nothing in it miraculous or extraordinary ; 
he escaped with life, and that is more than many others have 
done, who have been struck with lightning ; and that he should 
loose his sight for three days, and be unable to eat or drink du- 
ring that time, is nothing more than is common in such con- 
ditions. His companions that were with him appear not to have 
suffered in the same manner, for they were well enough to lead 

* "It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Genesis, chap, 
w. ver. 15. 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON 145 

him the remainder of the journey ; neither did they pretend to 
have seen any vision. 

The character of the person called Paul, according to the ac- 
counts given of him, has in it a great deal of violence and fana- 
ticism ; he had persecuted with as much heat as he preached 
afterwards ; the stroke he had received had changed his thinking, 
without altering his constitution ; and, either as a Jew or a Chris- 
tian, he was the same zealot. Such men are never good moral 
evidences of any doctrine they preach. They are always in ex- 
tremes, as well of actions as of belief. 

The doctrine he sets out to prove by argument, is the resur- 
rection of the same body : and he advances this as an evidence 
of immortality. But so much will men differ in their manner of 
thinking, and in the conclusions they draw from the same pre- 
mises, that this doctrine of the resurrection of the same body, so 
far from being an evidence of immortality, appears to me to fur- 
nish an evidence against it ; for if I had already died in this body, 
and am raised again in the same body in which I have died, it is 
presumptive evidence that I shall die again. That resurrection 
no more secures me against the repetition of dying, than an ague 
fit, when past, secures me against another. To believe, there- 
fore, in immortality, I must have a more elevated idea than is con- 
tained in the gloomy doctrine of the resurrection. 

Besides, as a matter of choice, as well as of hope, I had rather 
have a better body and a more convenient form than the present. 
Every animal in the creation excels us in something. The wing- 
ed insects, without mentioning doves or eagles, can pass over 
more space and with greater ease, in a few minutes, than man can 
in an hour. The glide of the smallest fish, in proportion to its 
bulk, exceeds us in motion, almost beyond comparison, and with- 
out weariness. Even the sluggish snail can ascend from the bot- 
tom of a dungeon, where a man, by the want of that ability, 
would perish ; and a spider can launch itself from the top, as a 
playful amusement. The personal powers of man are so limited, 
and his heavy frame so little constructed to extensive enjoyment, 
that there is nothing to induce us to wish the opinion of Paul 
to be true. It is too little for the magnitude of the scene — too 
mean for the sublimity of the subject. 

But all other arguments apart, the consciousjiess of existence 
is the onlv conceiveable idea we can have of another life, and the 

19 



146 



THE AGE OF REASON, 



continuance of that consciousness is immortality. The con- 
sciousness of existence, or the knowing that we exist, is not 
necessarily confined to the same form, nor to the same matter, 
even in this life. 

We have not in all cases the same form, nor in any case the 
same matter, that composed our bodies twenty or thirty years 
ago ; and yet we are conscious of being the same persons. Even 
legs and arms, which make up almost half the human frame, are 
not necessary to the consciousness of existence. These may 
be lost or taken away, and the full consciousness of existence 
remain ; and were their place supplied by wings, or other ap- 
pendages, we cannot conceive that it could alter our consciousness 
of existence. In short, we know not how much, or rather how 
little, of our composition it is, and how exquisitely fine that little is, 
that creates in us this consciousness of existence ; and all be- 
yond that is like the pulp of a peach, distinct and separate from 
the vegetative speck in the kernel. 

Who can say by what exceeding fine action of fine matter it is 
that a thought is produced in what we call the mind 1 and yet 
that thought when produced, as I now produce the thought I am 
writing, is capable of becoming immortal, and is the only pro- 
duction of man that has that capacity. , 

Statues of brass and marble will perish ; and statues made in 
imitation of them are not the same statues, nor the same work- 
manship, any more than the copy of a picture is the same picture. 
But print and reprint a thought a thousand times over, and that 
with materials of any kind — carve it in wood, or engrave it on 
stone, the thought is eternally and identically the same thought in 
every case. It has a capacity of unimpaired existence, unaffected 
by change of matter, and is essentially distinct, and of a nature 
different from every thing else that we know or can conceive. If 
then the thing produced has in itself a capacity of being immortal, 
it is more than a token that the power that produced it, which is 
the self-same thing as consciousness of existence, can be immor- 
tal also ; and that is independently of the matter it was first 
connected with, as the thought is of the printing or writing it first 
appeared in. The one idea is not more difficult to believe than the 
other, and we can see that one is true. 

That the consciousness of existence is not dependent on the 
same form or the same matter, is demonstrated to our senses in 



/ 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 147 

the works of the creation, as far as our senses are capable of re- 
ceiving that demonstration. A very numerous part of the animal 
creation preaches to us, far better than Paul, the belief of a life 
hereafter. Their little life resembles an earth and a heaven — a 
present and a future state : and comprises, if it may be so ex- 
pressed, immortality in miniature. 

The most beautiful parts of the creation to our eye are the 
winged insects, and they are not so originally. They acquire 
that form, and that inimitable brilliancy by progressive changes. 
The slow and creeping caterpillar-worm of to day, passes in a 
few days to a torpid figure, and a state resembling death ; and in 
the next change comes forth in all the miniature magnificence of 
life, a splendid butterfly. No resemblance of the former creature 
remains ; every thing is changed ; all his powers are new, and 
life is to him another thing. We cannot conceive that the con- 
sciousness of existence is not the same in this state of the animal 
as before ; why then must I believe that the resurrection of the 
same body is necessary to continue to me the consciousness of 
existence hereafter. 

In the former part of the £ge of Reason, I have called the 
creation the only true and real word of God ; and this instance, of 
this text, in the book of creation, not only shows to us that this 
thing may be so, but that it is so ; and that the belief of a future 
state is a rational belief, founded upon facts visible in the creation : 
for it is not more difficult to believe that we shall exist hereafter 
in a better state and form than at present, than that a worm 
should become a butterfly, and quit the dunghill for the atmos- 
phere, if we did not know it as a fact. 

As to the doubtful jargon ascribed to Paul in the 15th chapter 
of 1 Corinthians, which makes part of the burial service of some 
Christian sectaries, it is as destitute of meaning as the tolling of 
the bell at the funeral ; it explains nothing to the understanding — 
it illustrates nothing to the imagination, but leaves the reader to 
find any meaning if he can. « All flesh, (says he,) is not the same 
flesh. There is one flesh of men ; another of beasts ; another 
of fishes ; and another of birds." And what then? — nothing. A 
cook could have said as much. " There are also, (says he,) bodies 
celestial and bodies terrestial ; the glory of the celestial is one, 
and the glory of the terrestial is another." And what then ? — 
nothing. And what is the difference I nothing that he has told. 



148 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II. 

" There isj (says he,) one glory of the sun, and another glory of 
the moon, and another glory of the stars." And what then ? — 
nothing; except that he says that one star differethfrom anotJur 
star in glory, instead of distance; and he might as well have told 
us, that the moon did not shine so bright as the sun. All this is 
nothing better than the jargon of a conjuror, who picks up phrases 
he does not understand, to confound the credulous people who 
come to have their fortunes told. Priests and conjurors are of 
the same trade. 

Sometimes Paul affects to be a naturalist and to prove his system 
of resurrection from the principles of vegetation. " Thou fool, 
(says he,) that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die." 
To which one might reply in his own language, and say, Thou 
fool, Paul, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die 
not ; for the grain that dies in the ground never does, nor can 
vegetate. It is only the living grains that produce the next crop* 
But the metaphor, in any point of view, is no simile. It is sue-" 
cession, and not resurrection. 

The progress of an animal from one state of being to another, 
as from a worm to a butterfly, applies to the case ; but this of a 
grain does not, and shows Paul to have been what he says of 
others, a fool. 

Whether the fourteen epistles ascribed to Paul were written by 
him or not, is a matter of indifference ; they are either argumenta- 
tive or dogmatical ; and as the argument is defective, and the 
dogmatical part is merely presumptive, it signifies not who wrote 
them. And the same may be said for the remaining parts of the 
Testament. It is not upon the epistles, but upon what is called 
the gospel, contained in the four books ascribed to Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, and John, and upon the pretended prophecies, that 
the theory of the church, calling itself the Christian church, 
is founded. The epistles are dependent upon those, and must 
follow their fate ; for if the story of Jesus Christ be fabulous, all 
reasoning founded upon it as a supposed truth, must fall with it. 

We know from history, that one of the principal leaders of this 
church, Athanasius, lived at the time the New Testament was 
formed ;* and we know also, from the absurd jargon he has left 
us under the name of a creed, the character of the men who 
formed the New Testament ; and we know also from the same 

* Athanasius diedj according to the church chronology, in the year 371. 



FART II.] THE AGE Of- REASON* 149 

history, that the authenticity of the books of which it is composed 
was denied at the time. It was upon the vote of such as 
Athanasius, that the Testament was decreed to be the word of 
'God ; and nothing can present to us a more strange idea than 
that of decreeing the word of God by vote. Those who rest their 
faith upon such authority, put man in the place of God, and have 
no foundation for future happiness ; credulity, however, is not a 
crime ; but it becomes criminal by resisting conviction. It is 
strangling in the womb of the conscience the efforts it makes to 
ascertain truth. We should never force belief upon ourselves in 
any thing. 

I here ' close the subject on the Old Testament and the New, 
The evidence I have produced to prove them forgeries, is ex- 
tracted from the books themselves, and acts, like a two edged 
sword, either way. If the evidence be denied, the authenticity 
of the scriptures is denied with it ; for it is scripture evidence : 
and if the evidence be admitted, the authenticity of the books is 
disproved- The contradictory impossibilities contained in the 
Old Testament and the New, put them in the case of a man who 
swears for and against. Either evidence convicts him of perjury, 
and equally destroys reputation. 

Should the Bible and the Testament hereafter fall, it is not I 
that have been the occasion. I have done no more than extracted 
the evidence from that confused mass of matter with which it is 
mixed, and arranged that evidence in a point of light to be clearly 
seen and easily comprehended ; and, having done this, I leave the 
reader to judge for himself, as I have judged for myself. 



CONCLUSION. 

In the former part of the Age of Reason, I have spoken of the 
three frauds, mystery, miracle, and prophecy ; and as I have seen 
nothing in any of the answers to that work, that in the least effects 
what I have there said upon those subjects, I shall not encumber 
this Second Part with additions that are not necessary. 

I have spoken also in the same work upon what is called revela- 
tion, and have shown the absurd misapplication of that term to the 
books of the Old Testament and the New ; for certainly revela- 



150 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II. 

tion is out of the question in reciting any thing of which man has 
been the actor or the witness. That which a man has done or seen, 
needs no revelation to tell him he has done it, or seen it ; for he 
knows it already ; nor to enable him to tell it, or to write it. It is 
ignorance, or imposition, to apply the term revelation in such 
cases ; yet the Bible and Testament are classed under this frau- 
dulent description of being all revelation. 

Revelation then, so far as the term has relation between God 
and man, can only be applied to something which God reveals of 
his will to man ; but though the power of the Almighty to make 
such a communication, is necessarily admitted, because to that 
power all things are possible, yet, the thing so revealed (if any 
thing ever was revealed, and which, by the bye, it is impossible to 
prove) is revelation to the person only to whom it is made. His 
account of it to another is not revelation ; and whoever puts faith 
in that acccount, puts it in the man from whom the account comes ; 
and that man may have been deceived, or may have dreamed it ; 
or he may be an impostor, and may lie. There is no possible cri- 
terion whereby to judge of the truth of what he tells : for even the 
morality of it would be no proof of revelation. In all such cases, 
the proper answer would be, « When it is revealed to me, 1 will 
believe it to be a revelation ; bid it is not, and cannot be incumbent 
upon me to believe it to be revelation before ; neither is it proper 
that I should take the word of a man as the word of God, and put 
man in the place of God." This is the manner in which I have 
spoken of revelation in the former part of the Age of Reason ; and 
which, while it reverentially admits revelation as a possible thing, 
because, as before said, to the Almighty all things are possible, it 
prevents the imposition of one man upon another, and precludes 
the wicked use of pretended revelation. 

But though, speaking for myself, I thus admit the possibility of 
revelation, I totally disbelieve that the Almighty ever did com- 
municate any thing to man, by any mode of speech, in any lan- 
guage, or by any kind of vision, or appearance, or by any means 
which our senses are capable of receiving, otherwise than by the 
universal display of himself in the works of the creation, and by 
that repugnance we feel in ourselves to bad actions, and disposi- 
tion to do good ones. 

The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and 
the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race, have had 



f 



PART II.] THE AGE op REASON. 151 

their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It 
has been the most dishonorable belief against the character of the 
Divinity, the most destructive to morality, and the peace and hap- 
piness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist. 
It is better, far better, that we admitted, if it were possible, a 
thousand devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly the doc- 
trine of devils, if there were any such, than that we permitted one 
such imposter and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the 
Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God in his 
mouth, and have credit among us. 

Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of 
men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled : and the 
bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death, and religious wars, 
that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes ; whence 
arose they, but from this impious thing called revealed religion, 
and this monstrous belief, that God has spoken to man ? The lies 
of the Bible have been the cause of the one, and the lies of the 
Testament of the other. 

Some Christians pretend, that Christianity was not established 
by the sword ; but of what period of time do they speak? It was 
impossible that twelve men could begin with the sword ; they had 
not the power ; but no sooner were the professors of Christianity 
sufficiently powerful to employ the sword, than they did so, and 
the stake and the faggot too ; and Mahomet could not do it sooner. 
By the same spirit that Peter cut off the ear of the high priest's 
servant (if the story be true) he would have cut off his head, and 
the head of his master, had he been able. Besides this, Chris- 
tianity grounds itself originally upon the Bible, and the Bible was 
established altogether by the sword, and that in the worst use of it ; 
not to terrify, but to extirpate. The Jews made no converts ; they 
butchered all. The Bible is the sire of the Testament, and both 
are called the word of God. The Christians read both books ; the 
ministers preach from both books ; and this thing called Chris- 
tianity is made up of both. It is then false to say that Christianity 
was not established by the sword. 

The only sect that has not persecuted are the Quakers ; and the 
only reason that can be given for it is, that they are rather Deists 
than Christians. They do not believe much about Jesus Christ, 
and they call the Scriptures a dead letter. Had they called them 
by a worse name, they had been nearer the truth. 



152 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II* 

It is incumbent on every man who reverences the character of 
the Creator, and who wishes to lessen the catalogue of artificial 
miseries, and remove the cause that has sown persecutions thick 
among mankind, to expel all ideas of revealed religion as a danger- 
ous heresy, and an impious fraud. What is it that we have learned 
from this pretended thing called revealed religion 1 — nothing that 
is useful to man, and every thing that is dishonourable to his Ma- 
ker. What is it the Bible teaches us 1 — rapine, cruelty, and mur- 
der. What is it the Testament teaches us 1 — to believe that the 
Almighty committed debauchery with a woman, engaged to be 
married ! and the belief of this debauchery is called faith. 

As to the fragments of morality that are irregularly and thinly 
scattered in those books, they make no part of this pretended thing 
revealed religion. They are the natural dictates of conscience, 
and the bonds by which society is held together, and without which 
it cannot exist ; and are nearly the same in all religions, and in all 
societies. The Testament teaches nothing new upon this subject, 
and where it attempts to exceed, it becomes mean and ridiculous. 
The doctrine of not retaliating injuries, is much better expressed 
in proverbs, which is a collection as well from the Gentiles as the 
Jews, than it is in the Testament. It is there said, Proverbs xxv. 
ver. 21, " If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat ; and if 
he be thirsty, give him water to drink ;*" but when it is said, as in 
the Testament, " If a man smite thee on the right cheek, turn to 
him the other also it is assassinating the dignity of forbearance^ 
and sinking man into a spaniel. 

Loving enemies, is another dogma of feigned morality, and has 
besides no meaning. It is incumbent on man, as a moralist, that 
he does not revenge an injury ; and it is equally as good in a po- 
litical sense, for there is no end to retaliation, each retaliates on 

* According to what is called Christ's sermon on the mount, in the book of 
Matthew, where, among some other good things, a great deal of this feigned 
morality is introduced, it is there expressly said, that the doctrine of forbear- 
ance, or of not retaliating injuries, was not any part of the doctrine of the Jews ; 
but as this doctrine is founded in proverbs, it must, according to that state- 
ment, have been copied from the Gentiles, from whom Christ had learned it. 
Those men, whom Jewish and Christian idolators have abusively called hea- 
thens, had much better and clearer ideas of justice and morality, than are to 
be found in the Old Testament, so far as it is Jewish ; or in the New. The 
answer of Solon on the question, " Which is the most perfect popular govern- 
ment," has never been exceeded by any man since his time, as containing a 
maxim of political morality. " That," says he, " where the least injury done 
to the meanest individual, is considered as an insult on the whole constitution^ 
Solon lived about 500 years before Christ. 



PART II. j THE AGE OF REA S0N ' 153 

the other, and calls it justice ; but to love in proportion to the in- 
jury, if it could be done, would be to offer a premium for crime. 
Besides the word enemies is too vague and general to be used in a 
moral maxim, which ought always to be clear and defined, like a 
proverb. If a man be the enemy of another from mistake and 
prejudice, as in the case of religious opinions, and sometimes in 
politics, that man is different to an enemy at heart with a criminal 
intention ; and it is incumbent upon us, and it contributes also to 
our own tranquillity, that we put the best construction upon a thing 
that it will bear. But even this erroneous motive in him, makes 
no motive for love on the other part ; and to say that we can love 
voluntarily, and without a motive, is morally and physically impos- 
sible. 

Morality is injured by prescribing to it duties, that, in the first 
place, are impossible to be performed ; and, if they could be, 
would be productive of evil ; or, as before said, be premiums for 
crime. The maxim of doing as we would be done unto, does not 
include this strange doctrine of loving enemies ; for no man ex- 
pects to be loved himself for his crime or for his enmity. 

Those who preach this doctrine of loving their enemies, are in 
general the greatest persecutors, and they act consistently by so 
doing ; for the doctrine is hypocritical, and it is natural that hypo- 
crisy should act the reverse of what it preaches. For my own 
part, I disown the doctrine, and consider it as a feigned or fabu- 
lous morality ; yet the man does not exist that can say I have 
persecuted him, or any man or any set of men, either in the Ameri- 
can Revolution, or in the French Revolution ; or that I have, in 
any case, returned evil for evil. But it is not incumbent on man 
to reward a bad action with a good one, or to return good for evil ; 
and wherever it is done, it is a voluntary act, and not a duty. It 
is also absurd to suppose that such doctrine can make any part of 
a revealed religion. We imitate the moral character of the Cre- 
ator by forbearing with each other, for he forbears with all ; but 
this doctrine would imply that he loved man, not in proportion as 
he was good, but as he was bad. 

If we consider the nature of our condition here, we must see 
there is no occasion for such a thing as revealed religion, What 
is it we want to know ? Does not the creation, the universe we be- 
hold, preach to us the existence of an Almighty power that go- 
verns and regulates the whole ? And is not the evidence that 

20 



TkE AGE OF REASON. £ PART II. 

this creation holds out to our senses infinitely stronger than any 
thing we can read in a book, that any imposter might make and 
call the word of God ? As for morality, the knowledge of it 
exists in every man's conscience. 

Here we are. The existence of an Almighty power is sufficient- 
ly demonstrated to us, though we cannot conceive, as it is impos- 
sible we should, the nature and manner of its existence. We can- 
not conceive how we came here ourselves, and yet we know for a 
fact that we are here. We must know also, that the power that 
called us into being, can, if he please, and when he pleases, call 
us to account for the manner in which we have lived here ; and, 
therefore, without seeking any other motive for the belief, it is ra- 
tional to believe that he will, for we know before-hand that he can* 
The probability, or even possibility of the thing is all that we ought 
to know ; for if we knew it as a fact, we should be the mere slaves 
of terror : our belief would have no merit ; and our best actions 
no virtue. 

Deism then teaches us, without the possibility of being deceiv- 
ed, all that is necessary or proper to be known. The creation is 
the Bible of the Deist. He there reads, in the hand-writing of the 
Creator himself, the certainty of his existence, and the immutabi- 
lity of his power, and all other Bibles and Testaments are to him 
forgeries. The probability that we may be called to account 
hereafter, will, to a reflecting mind, have the influence of belief ; 
for it is riot our belief or disbelief that can make or unmake the 
fact. As this is the state we are in, and which it is proper we 
should be in, as free agents, it is the fool only, and riot the philo- 
sopher, or even the prudent man, that would live as if there were 
no God. 

But the belief of a God is so weakened by being mixed with the 
strange fable of the Christian creed, and with the wild adventures 
related in the Bible, and of the obscurity and obscene nonsense 
of the Testament, that the mind of man is bewildered as in a fog. 
Yiewing all these things in a confused mass, he confounds fact 
with fable ; and as he cannot believe all, he feels a disposition to 
reject all. But the belief of a God is a belief distinct from all 
other things, and ought not to be confounded with any. The no- 
tion of a Trinity of Gods has enfeebled the belief of one God. A 
multiplication of beliefs acts as a division of belief : and in pro- 
portion as any thing is divided it is weakened. 



PART H.'J THE AGE OF REASON* 3 5§ 

Religion, by such means, becomes a thing of form, instead of 
feet ; of notion, instead of principles ; morality is banished, to 
make room for an imaginary thing, called faith, and this faith has 
its origin in a supposed debauchery ; a man is preached instead 
of God ; an execution is an object for gratitude ; the preachers 
daub themselves with the blood, like a troop of assassins, and 
pretend to admire the brilliancy it gives them ; they preach a 
humdrum sermon on the merits of the execution ; then praise 
Jesus Christ for being executed, and condemn the Jews for do- 
ing it, 

A man, by hearing all this nonsense lumped and preached toge- 
ther, confounds the God of the creation with the imagined God of 
the Christians, and lives as if there were none. 

Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is 
none more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man,, 
more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than 
this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossi- 
ble to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders thp 
heart torpid, or produces only atheists and fanatics. As an en- 
gine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism ; and as a means 
of wealth, the avarice of priests ; but so far as respects the good 
of man in general, it leads to nothing here or hereafter. 

The only religion that has not been invented, and that has in it 
every evidence of divine originality, is pure and simple Deism. 
It must have been the first, and will probably be the last that man 
believes. But pure and simple Deism- does not answer the pur- 
pose of despotic governments. They cannot lay hold of religion 
as an engine, but by mixing it with human inventions, and making 
iheiv own authority a part ; neither does it answer the avarice of 
priests but by incorporating themselves and their functions with it, 
and becoming, like the government, a party in the system. It is 
this that forms the otherwise mysterious connection of church an.d 
state ; the church humane, and the state tyrannic. 

Were man impressed as fully and as strongly as he ought to be 
with the belief of a God, his moral life would be regulated by the 
force of that belief ; he would stand in awe of God, and of him- 
self, and would not do the thing that could not be concealed from 
either. To give this belief the full opportunity of force, it is ne- 
cessary that it acts alone. This is Deism. 



156 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II. 

But when, according to the Christian Trinitarian scheme, one 
part of God is represented by a dying man, and another part called 
the Holy Ghost, by a flying pigeon, it is impossible that belief 
can attach itself to such wild conceits.* 

It has been the scheme of the Christian church, and of all the 
other invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance of the 
Creator, as it is of government to hold man in ignorance of his 
rights. The systems of the one are as false as those of the other, 
and are calculated for mutual support. The study of theology, 
as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing ; it is 
founded on nothing ; it rests on no principles ; it proceeds by no 
authorities ; it has no data ; it can demonstrate nothing ; and it 
admits of no conclusion. Not any thing can be studied as a sci- 
ence, without our being in possession of the principles upon 
which it is founded ; and as this is not the case with Christian 
theology, it is therefore the study of nothing. 

Instead then of studying theology, as is now done, out of the 
Bible and Testament, the meanings of which books are always 
controverted, and the authenticity of which is disproved, it is 
necessary that we refer to the Bible of the creation. The prin- 
ciples we discover there are eternal, and of divine origin : they 
are the foundation of all the science that exists in the world, and 
must be the foundation of theology. 

We can know God only through his works. We cannot have a 
conception of any one attribute, but by following some principle 
that leads to it. We have only a confused idea of his power, if 
we have not the means of comprehending something of its im- 
mensity. We can have no idea of his wisdom, but by knowing 
the order and manner in which it acts. The principles of science 
lead to this knowledge ; for the Creator of man is the Creator of 
science ; and it is through, that medium that man can see God, as 
it were, face to face. 

Could a man be placed in a situation, and endowed with the 
power of vision, to behold at one view, and to contemplate delibe- 
rately, the structure of the universe ; to mark the movements of 

* The book called the book of Matthew, says, chap. iii. ver. 16, that the 
Holy Ghost descended in the shape of a dove. It might as well have said a 
goose ; the creatures are equally harmless, and the one is as much a nonsensical 
lie as the other. The second of Acts, ver. 2, 3, says, that it descended in a 
mighty rushing wind, in the shape of cloven tongues : perhaps it was cloven 
feet. Such absurd stuff is only fit for tales of witches and wizards. 



PART II.] TI!E AGE OF REASON. 157 

the several planets, the cause of their varying appearances, the 
unerring order in which they revolve, even to the remotest comet ; 
their connection and dependence on each other, and to know the 
system of laws established by the Creator, that governs and regu- 
lates the whole ; he would then conceive, far beyond what any 
church theology can teach him, the power, the wisdom, the vast- 
ness, the munificence of the Creator ; he would then see, that all 
the knowledge man has of science, and that all the mechanical arts 
by which he renders his situation comfortable here, are derived 
from that source : his mind, exalted by the scene, and convinced 
by the fact, would increase in gratitude as it increased in know- 
ledge ; his religion or his worship would become united with his 
improvement as a man ; any employment he followed, that had 
connection with the principles of the creation, as every thing of 
agriculture, of science, and of the mechanical arts, has, would 
teach him more of God, and of the gratitude he owes to him, than 
any theological Christian sermon he now hears. Great objects 
inspire great thoughts ; great munificence excites great gratitude ; 
but the groveling tales and doctrines of the Bible and the Testa- 
ment are fit only to excite contempt. 

Though man cannot arrive, at least in this life, at the actual 
scene I have described, he can demonstrate it ; because he has a 
knowledge of the principles upon which the creation is constructed. 
We know that the greatest works can be represented in model, 
and that the universe can be represented by the same means. 
The same principles by which we measure an inch, or an acre of 
ground, will measure to millions in extent. A circle of an inch 
diameter, has the same geometrical properties as a circle that 
would circumscribe the universe. The same properties of a 
triangle that will demonstrate upon paper the course of a ship, will 
do it on the ocean ; and when applied to what are called the 
heavenly bodies, will ascertain to a minute the time of an eclipse, 
though these bodies are millions of miles distant from us. This 
knowledge is of divine origin ; and it is from the Bible of the 
creation that man has learned it, and not from the stupid Bible of 
the church, that teacheth man nothing.* 

* The Bible-makers have undertaken to give us, in the first chapter of 
Genesis, an account of the creation ; and in doing this they have demonstrated 
nothing but their ignorance. They make there to have been three days and 
three nights, evenings and mornings, before there was a sun ; when it is the 
presence or absence of a sun that is the cause of day and night — and what is 



158 THE AGE OF REASON* [PART II, 

Ail the knowledge man has of science and of machinery, by the 
aid of which his existence is rendered comfortable upon earth, 
and without which he would be scarcely distinguishable in appear- 
ance and condition from a common animal, comes from the great 
machine and structure of the universe. The constant and un- 
wearied observations of our ancestors upon the movements and 
revolutions of the heavenly bodies, in what are supposed to have 
been the early ages of the world, have brought this knowledge 
upon earth. It is not Moses and the prophets, nor Jesus Christ, 
nor his apostles that have done it. The Almighty is the great 
mechanic of the creation ; the first philosopher and original 
teacher of all science ; — Let us then learn to reverence our mas- 
ter, and not let us forget the labours of our ancestors. 

Had we, at this day, no knowledge of machinery, and were it 
possible that man could have a view, as I have before described, 
of the structure and machinery of the universe, he would soon 
conceive the idea of constructing some at least of the mechanical 
works we now have : and the idea so conceived would progres- 
sively advance in practice. Or could a model of the universe, 
such as is called an orrery, be presented before him and put in 
motion, his mind would arrive at the same idea. Such an object 
and such a subject would, whilst it improved him in knowledge 
useful to himself as a man and a member of society, as well as 
entertaining, afford far better matter for impressing him with a 
knowledge of, and a belief in the Creator, and of the reverence 
and gratitude that man owes to him, than the stupid texts of the 
Bible and of the Testament, from which, be the talents of the 
preacher what they may, only stupid sermons can be preached. 
If man must preach, let him preach something that is edifying, 
and from texts that are known to be true. 

The Bible of the creation is inexhaustible in texts. Every part 

called his rising and setting, that of morning and evening. Besides, it is a pue- 
rile and pitiful idea, to suppose the Almighty to say, " Let there be light." It 
is the imperative manner of speaking that a conjurer uses, when he says to his 
cups and balls, Presto, be gone — and most probably has been taken from it, 
as Moses and his rod are a conjurer and his wand. Longinus calls this ex- 
pression the sublime ; and by the same rule the conjurer is sublime too ; for 
the manner of speaking is expressively and grammatically the same. When 
authors and critics talk of the sublime, they see not how neai-ly it borders on 
the ridiculous. The sublime of the critics, like some parts of Edmund Burke's 
sublime and beautiful, is like a wind-mill just visible in a fog, which im- 
magination might distort into a flying mountain, or an archangel, or $ 
flock of wild geese. 



PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 159 

of science, whether connected with the geometry of the universe, 
with the systems of animal and vegetable life, or with the proper- 
ties of inanimate matter, is a text as well for devotion as for philo- 
sophy — for gratitude as for human improvement. It will perhaps 
be said, that if such a revolution in the system of religion takes 
place, every preacher ought to be a philosopher. — Most certainty ; 
and every house of devotion a school of science. 

It has been by wandering from the immutable laws of science, 
and the right use of reason, and setting up an invented thing called 
revealed religion, that so many wild and blasphemous conceits 
have been formed of the Almighty. The Jews have made him 
the assassin of the human species, to make room for the religion of 
the Jews. The Christians have made him the murderer of him- 
self, and the founder of a new religion, to supercede and expel the 
Jewish religion. And to find pretence and admission for these 
things, they must have supposed his power and his wisdom imper- 
fect, or his will changeable ; and the changeableness of the will 
is the imperfection of the judgment. The philosopher knows that 
the laws of the Creator have never changed with respect either to 
the principles of science, or the properties of matter. Why then 
is it to be supposed they have changed with respect to man ? 

I here close the subject. I have shown in all the foregoing parts 
of this work that the Bible and Testament are impositions and 
forgeries ; and I leave the evidence I have produced in proof of it 
to be refuted, if any one can do it : and I leave the ideas that 
are suggested in the conclusion of the work to rest on the mind 
of the reader ; certain as I am, that when opinions are free, 
either in matters of government or religion, truth will finally 
and powerfully prevail. 



THE END. 



LETTER; 

BEING 

AN ANSWER TO A FRIEND, 

ON THE PUBLICATION OF 

THE AGE OF REASON. 

PARIS, MAY 12, 1797. 

In your letter of the 20th of March, you gave me several quo- 
tations from the Bible, which you call the word of God, to show 
me that my opinions on religion are wrong, and 1 could give you 
as many, from the same book, to show that yours are not right ; 
consequently, then, the Bible decides nothing, because it decides 
any way, and every way, one chooses to make it. 

But by what authority do you call the Bible the word of 
God 1 for this is the first point to be settled. It is not your calling 
it so that makes it so, any more than the Mahometans calling the 
Koran the word of God makes the Koran to be so. The Popish 
Councils of Nice and Laodicea, about 350 years after the time 
that the person called Jesus Christ is said to have lived, voted the 
books, that now compose what is called the New Testament, to 
be the word of God. This was done by yeas and nays, as we 
now vote a law. The Pharisees of the second Temple, after the 
Jews returned from captivity in Babylon, did the same by the 
books that now compose the Old Testament, and this is all the 
authority there is, which to me is no authority at all. I am as ca- 
pable of judging for myself as they were, and I think more so, 
because, as they made a living by their religion, they had a self- 
interest in the vote they gave. 

21 



162 



LETTER TO A FRIEND. 



You may have an opinion that a man is inspired, but you can- 
not prove it, nor can you have any proof of it yourself, because 
you cannot see into his mind in order to know how he comes by 
his thoughts, and the same is the case with the word revelation. — 
There can be no evidence of such a thing, for you can no more 
prove revelation, than you can prove what another man dreams of* 
neither can he prove it himself. 

It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but 
how do you know that God spake unto Moses 1 Because, you will 
say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto 
Mahomet, do you believe that too 1 No. Why not ? Because, 
you will say, you do not believe it ; and so because you do, and 
because you don't, is all the reason you can give for believing or 
disbelieving, except you will say that Mahomet was an imposter. 
And how do you know Moses was not an imposter ? For my own 
part, I believe that all are imposters who pretend to hold verbal 
communication with the Deity. It is the way by which the world 
has been imposed upon ; but if you think otherwise you have the 
same right to your opinion that I have to mine, and must answer 
for it in the same manner. But all this does not settle the point, 
whether the Bible be the word of God, or not. It is, therefore, ne- 
cessary to go a step further. The case then is : — 

You form your opinion of God from the account given of him 
in the Bible ; and I form my opinion of the Bible from the wis- 
dom and goodness of God, manifested in the structure of the uni- 
verse, and in all the works of the Creation. The result in these 
two cases will be, that you, by taking the Bible for your standard, 
will have a bad opinion of God ; and I, by taking God for my 
standard, shall have a bad opinion of the Bible. 

The Bible represents God to be a changeable, passionate, vin- 
dictive being ; making a world, and then drowning it, afterwards 
repenting of what he had done, and promising not to do so again. 
Setting one nation to cut the throats of another, and stopping the 
course of the sun till the butchery should be done. But the works 
of God, in the Creation, preach to us another doctrine. In that 
vast volume we see nothing to give us the idea of a changeable, 
passionate, vindictive God, every thing we there behold impresses 
us with a contrary idea ; that of unchangeableness and of eternal 
order, harmony, and goodness. The sun and the seasons return 
at their appointed time, and every thing in the Creation proclaims 



LETTER TO A FRIEND. 



163 



that God is unchangeable. Now, which am I to believe, a book 
that any impostor may make, and call the word of God, or the 
Creation itself which none but an Almighty Power could make, for 
the Bible says one thing, and the Creation says the contrary. 
The Bible represents God with all the passions of a mortal, and 
the Creation proclaims him with all the attributes of a God. 

It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and 
murder ; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man. That 
blood-thirsty man, called the prophet Samuel, makes God to say, 
(1 Sam. chap. xv. ver. 3,) " Now go and smite Amaleck, and 
utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both 
man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and 
ass." 

That Samuel, or some other impostor, might say this, is what, 
at this distance of time, can neither be proved nor disproved, but, 
in my opinion, it is blasphemy to say, or to believe, that God said 
it. All our ideas of the justice and goodness of God revolt at 
the impious cruelty of the Bible. It is not a God, just and good, 
but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes. 

What makes this pretended order to destroy the Amalekites ap- 
pear the worse, is the reason given for it. The Amalekites, four 
hundred years before, according to the account in Exodus, chap. 
17, (but which has the appearance of fable from the magical ac- 
count it gives of Moses holding up his hands,) had opposed the 
Israelites coming into their country, and this the Amalekites had 
a right to do, because the Israelites were the invaders, as the 
Spaniards were the invaders of Mexico ; and this opposition by 
the Amalekites, at that time, is given as a reason, that the men, 
women, infants and sucklings, sheep and oxen, camels and asses, 
that were born four hundred years afterwards, should be put to 
death ; and to complete the horror, Samuel hewed Agag, the 
chief of the Amalekites, in pieces, as you would hew a stick 
of wood, I will bestow a few observations on this case. 

In the first place, nobody knows who the author, or writer, of 
the book of Samuel was, and, therefore, the fact itself has no 
other proof than anonymous or hearsay evidence, which is no 
evidence at all. In the second place, this anonymous book says* 
that this slaughter was done by the express command of God : but 
all our ideas of the justice and goodness of God give the lie to 
the book, and as I never will believe any book that ascribes cruelty 



164 



LETTER TO A FRIEND. 



and injustice to God. I, therefore, reject the Bible as unworthy 
of credit. 

As I have now given you my reasons for believing that the Bible 
is not the word of God, and that it is a falsehood, I have a right 
to ask you your reasons for believing the contrary ; but I know 
you can give me none, except that you were educated to believe 
the Bible, and as the Turks give the same reason for believing 
the Koran, it is evident that education makes all the difference, and 
that reason and truth have nothing to do in the case. You be- 
lieve in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe 
in the Koran from the same accident, and each calls the other in- 
fidel. — But leaving the prejudice of education out of the case, 
the unprejudiced truth is, that all are infidels who believe false- 
ly of God, whether they draw their creed from the Bible, or 
from the Koran, from the Old Testament or from the New. 

When you have examined the Bible with the attention that I 
have done, (for I do not think you know much about it,) and per- 
mit yourself to have just ideas of God, you will most probably 
believe as I do. But I wish you to know that this answer to your 
letter is not written for the purpose of changing your opinion. 
It is written to satisfy you, and some other friends whom I esteem, 
that my disbelief of the Bible is founded on a pure and religious 
belief in God ; for, in my opinion, the Bible is a gross libel 
against the justice and goodness of God, in almost every part of it. 

THOMAS PAINE, 



A 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE * 

Of all the tyrannies that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is 
the worst : every other species of tyranny is limited to the world 
we live in ; but this attempts a stride beyond the grave, and seeks 
to pursue us into eternity. It is there and not here — it is to God 
and not to man — it is to a heavenly and not to an earthly tribunal 
that we are to account for our belief; if then we believe falsely 
and dishonourably of the Creator, and that belief is forced upon 
us, as far as force can operate by human laws and human tribu- 
nals, — on whom is the criminality of that belief to fall ? on those 
who impose it, or on those on whom it is imposed ? 

A bookseller of the name of Williams has been prosecuted in 
London on a charge of blasphemy, for publishing a book entitled 
the Age of Reason. Blasphemy is a word of vast sound, but 
equivocal and almost indefinite signification, unless we confine it 
to the simple idea of hurting or injuring the reputation of any one, 
which was its original meaning. As a word, it existed before 
Christianity existed, being a Greek word, or Greek anglofied, as 
all the etymological dictionaries will show. 

But behold how various and contradictory has been the signifi- 
cation and application of this equivocal word. Socrates, who 
lived more than four hundred years before the Christian era, was 

* Mr. Paine has evidently incorporated into this Letter a portion of his an- 
swer to Bishop Watson's "Apology for the Bible ;" as in a chapter of that 
work, treating of the Book of Genesis, he expressly refers to his remarks, in a 
preceding part of the same, on the two accounts of the creation contained in 
that book ; which is included in this letter, 



166 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 



convicted of blasphemy, for preaching against the belief of a plu- 
rality of gods, and for preaching the belief of one god, and was 
condemned to suffer death by poison. Jesus Christ was convict- 
ed of blasphemy under the Jewish law, and was crucified. Call- 
ing Mahomet an impostor would be blasphemy in Turkey ; and 
denying the infallibility T^f the Pope, and the Church, would be 
blasphemy at Rome. What then is to be understood by this word 
blasphemy 1 We see that in the case of Socrates truth was con- 
demned as blasphemy. Are we sure that truth is not blasphemy 
in the present day ? Woe, however, be to those who make it so, 
whoever they may be. 

A book called the Bible has been voted by men, and decreed by 
human laws to be the word of God ; and the disbelief of this is 
called blasphemy. But if the Bible be not the word of God, it is 
the laws and the execution of them that is blasphemy, and not the 
disbelief. Strange stories are told of the Creator in that book. 
He is represented as acting under the influence of every human 
passion, even of the most malignant kind. If these stories are 
false, we err in believing them to be true, and ought not to believe 
them. It is, therefore, a duty which every man owes to himself, 
and reverentially to his Maker, to ascertain, by every possible in- 
quiry, whether there be sufficient evidence to believe them or not. 

My own opinion is, decidedly, that the evidence does not warrant 
the belief, and that we sin in forcing that belief upon ourselves and 
upon others. In saying this, I have no other object in view than 
truth. But that I may not be accused of resting upon bare asser- 
tion with respect to the equivocal state of the Bible, I will produce 
an example, and I will not pick and cull the Bible for the purpose. 
I will go fairly to the case : I will take the two first chapters of 
Genesis as they stand, and show from thence the truth of what I 
say, that is, that the evidence does not warrant the belief that the 
Bible is the word of God. 



CHAPTER I. 

1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 

2. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was 
upon the face of the deep ; and the spirit of God moved upon the 

face of the waters. 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 



167 



8. And God said, Let there be light ; and there was light. 

4. And God saw the light, that it was good : and God divided 
the light from darkness. 

5. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called 
night : and the evening and the morning were the first day. 

6. IT And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of 
the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 

7. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which 
were under the firmament, from the waters which were above the 
firmament : and it was so. 

8. And God called the firmament heaven ; and the evening and 
the morning were the second day. 

9. IT And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gather- 
ed together unto one place, and let the dry land appear : and it 
was so. 

10. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering to- 
gether of the waters called he seas, and God saw that it was good. 

11. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb, 
yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose 
seed is in itself, upon the earth, and it was so. 

12. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed 
after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, 
after his kind : and God saw that it was good. 

13. And the evening and the morning were the third day. 

14. IT And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of 
the heaven, to divide the day from the night : and let them be for 
signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years. 

15. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven, 
to give light upon the earth : and it was so. 

16. And God made two great lights ; the greater light to rule 
the day, and the lesser light to rule the night : he made the stars 
also. 

17. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give 
light upon the earth, 

18. And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide 
the light from the darkness ; and God saw that it was good. 

19. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. 

20. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the 
moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the 
earth in the open firmament of heaven. 



168 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 



21. And God created great whales, and every living creature 
that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their 
kind, and every winged fowl after his kind : and God saw that it 
was good. 

22. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, 
and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 

23. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 

24. IT And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living crea- 
ture after his kind, cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth 
after his kind : and it was so. 

25. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and 
cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth 
after his kind : and God saw that it was good. 

26. TF And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our 
likeness : and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and 
over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, 
and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 

27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God 
created he him : male and female created he them. 

28. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruit- 
ful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it ; and 
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, 
and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. 

29. IT And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb 
bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every 
tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed : to you it shall 
be for meat. 

30. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the 
air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there 
is life, I have given every green herb for meat : and it was so. 

31. And God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it 
was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth 
day. 



CHAPTER IL 



1. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the 

tiost of them. 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 



169 



2. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had 
made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he 
had made. 

3. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it : because 
that in it he had rested from all his work, which God created and 
made. 



4. IF These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, 
when they were created ; in the day that the Lord God made the 
earth and the heavens. 

5. And every plant of the field, before it was in the earth, and 
every herb of the field, before it grew ; for the Lord God had not 
caused it to rain upon the earth, and there ions not a man to till the 
ground. 

6. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the 
whole face of the ground. 

7. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, 
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became 
a living soul. 

8. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward of Eden ; and 
there he put the man whom he had formed. 

9. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every 
tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food ; the tree of 
life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of 
good and evil. 

10. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden : and 
from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. 

11. The name of the first is Pison : that is it which compasseth 
the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 

12. And the gold of that land is good : there is bdellium and 
the onyx-stone. 

13. And the name of the second river is Gibon : the same is 
it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. 

14. And the name of the third river is Heddekel : that is it 
which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is 
Euphrates. 

15. And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the gar* 
den of Eden, to dress it and to keep it.. 

22 



170 



LETTER TO MR. EliSKINE. 



16. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every 
tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat : 

17. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou 
shalt not eat of it ; for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou 
shalt surely die. 

18. IT And the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should 
be alone : I will make him an help meet for him. 

19. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of 
the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam, 
to see what he would call them ; and whatsoever Adam called 
every living creature, that was the name thereof. 

20. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the 
air, and to every beast of the field ; but for Adam there was not 
found an help meet for him. 

21. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, 
and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the 
flesh instead thereof. 

22. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, mad® 
he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 

23. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of 
my flesh ; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out 
of man. 

24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and 
shall cleave unto his wife ; and they shall be one flesh. 

25. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were 
not ashamed. 



These two chapters are called the Mosaic account of the crea- 
tion ; and we are told, nobody knows by whom, that Moses was 
instructed by God to write that account. 

It has happened that every nation of people has been world- 
makers ; and each makes the world to begin his own way, as if 
they had all been brought up, as Hudibras says, to the trade. There 
are hundreds of different opinions and traditions how the world 
began.* My business, however, in this place, is only with those 
two chapters. 

* In this world-making trade, man, of course, has held a conspicuous place ; 
and, for the gratification of the curious enquirer, the editor subjoins two spe- 



LETTER TO MR. ERSK1NE. 



171 



I begin then by saying, that those two chapters, instead of 
containing, as has been believed, one continued account of the 
creation, written by Moses, contain two different and con- 

cimens of the opinions of learned men, in regard to the manner of his forma- 
tion, and of his subsequent fall. The first he extracts from the Talmud, a work 
containing the Jewish traditions, the rabbinical constitutions, and explication 
of the law ; and is of great authority among the Jews. It was composed by- 
certain learned rabbins, comprehends twelve bulky folios, and forty years are 
said to have been consumed in its compilation. In fact, it is deemed to con- 
tain the xohole body of divinity for the Jewish nation. Although the Scrip- 
tures tell us that the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, they do 
not explain the manner in which it was done, and these doctors supply the 
deficiency as follows : — 

"Adam's body was made of the earth of Babylon, his head of the land of 
Israel, his other members of other parts of the world. R. Meir thought he 
was compact of the earth, gathered out of the whole earth ; as it is written, 
thine eyes did see my substance. Now it is elsewhere written, the eyes of the Lord 
are over all the earth. R. Aha expressly marks the twelve hours in which his 
various parts were formed. His stature was from one end of the world to the 
other ; and it was for his transgression that the Creator, laying his hand in 
anger on him, lessened him ; for before, says R. Eleazer, with his hand he 
reached the firmament. R. Jehuda thinks his sin was heresy ; but R. Isaac 
thinks it was nourishing his foreskin." 

The Mahometan savans give the following account of the same transac- 
tion : — 

" When God wished to create man, he sent the angel Gabriel to take a 
handfull of each of the seven beds which composed the earth. But when 
the latter heard the order of God, she felt much alarmed, and requested the 
heavenly messenger to represent to God, that as the creature he was about 
to form might chance to rebel one day against him, this would be the means 
of bringing upon herself the divine malediction. God, however, far from 
listening to this request, despatched two other angels, Michael and Azrael, 
to execute his will ; but they, moved with compassion, were- prevailed upon 
again to lay the complaints of the earth at the feet of her author. Then 
God confined the execution of his commands to the formidable Azrael 
alone, who, regardless of all the earth might say, violently tore from her 
bosom seven handfuls from her various strata, and carried them into Arabia, 
where the work of creation was to be completed. As to Azrael, God was so 
well pleased with the decisive manner in which he had acted, that he gave 
him the office of separating the soul from the body, whence he is called the 
Angel of Death. 

"Meanwhile, the angels having kneaded this earth, God moulded it with his 
own hands, and left it some time that it might get dry. The angels de- 
lighted to gaze upon the lifeless, but beautiful mass, with the exception of 
Eblis, or Lucifer, who, bent upon evil, struck it upon the stomach, which 
giving a hollow sound, he said, since this creature will be hollow, it will 
often need being filled, and will be, therefore, exposed to pregnant tempta- 
tions. Upon this, he asked the angels how they would act if God wished to 
render them dependent upon this sovereign which he was about to give to the 
earth. They readily answered that they would obey ; but though Eblis did 
not openly dissent, he resolved within himself that he would not follow their 
example. 

" After the body of the first man had been properly prepared, God animated 
it with an intelligent soul, and clad him in splendid and marvellous garments, 
suited to the dignity of this favoured being. He now commanded his angels 
to fall prostrate before Adam. All of them obeyed, with the exception of 
Eblis, who was in consequence immediately expelled from heaven, and his 
place given to Adam. 

" The formation of Eve from one of the ribs of the first man, is the same as 
that recorded in the Bible, as is also the order given to the father of mankind, 
aot to taste the fruit of a particular tree. Eblis seized this opportunity of re- 



172 LETTER TO MR. ERSKII^E. 

tradictory stories of a creation, made by two different persons, 
and written in two different styles of expression. The evidence 
that shows this is so clear, when attended to without prejudice, 
that, did we meet with the same evidence in any Arabic or Chi- 
nese account of a creation, we should not hesitate in pronouncing 
it a forgery. 

I proceed to distinguish the two stories from each other. 

The first story begins at the first verse of the first chapter, and 
ends at the end of the third verse of the second chapter; for the 
adverbial conjunction, THUS, with which the second chapter 
begins, (as the reader will see,) connects itself to the last verse of 
the first chapter, and those three verses belong to, and make the 
conclusion of the first story. 

The second story begins at the fourth verse of the second 
chapter, and ends with that chapter. . Those two stories have been 
confused into one, by cutting off the three last verses of the first 
story, and throwing them to the second chapter. 

I go now to show that those stories have been written by two 
different persons. 

From the first verse of the first chapter to the end of the third 
verse of the second chapter, which makes the whole of the first 
story, the word GOD is used without any epithet or additional 
word conjoined with it, as the reader will see: and this style of 
expression is invariably used throughout the whole of this story ? 
and is repeated no less than thirty-five times, viz. " In the begin- 
ning God created the heavens and the earth, and the spirit of God 

venge. Having associated the peacock and the serpent in the enterprise, 
they by their wily speeches at length persuaded Adam to become guilty of dis- 
obedience. But no sooner had they touched the forbidden fruit, than their 
garments dropped on the ground, and the sight of their nakedness covered 
them both with shame and with confusion. They made a covering for their 
body with fig leaves : but they were both immediately condemned to labour, 
and to die, and hurled down from Paradise. 

" Adam fell upon the mountain of Sarendip, in the island of Ceylon, where a 
mountain is called by his name to the present day. Eve, being separated 
from her spouse in her fall, alighted on the spot where China now stands, and 
Eblis fell not far from the same spot. As to the peacock and the snake, the 
former dropped in Hindostan and the latter in Arabia. Adam soon feeling 
the enormity of his fault, implored the mercy of God, who relenting, sent 
down his angels from heaven with a tabernacle, which they placed on the 
spot where Abraham, at a subsequent period, built the temple of Mecca. 
Gabriel instructed him in the rites and ceremonies performed about the sanc- 
tuary, in order that he might obtain the forgiveness of his offence, and after- 
wards led him to the mountain of Ararat, where he met Eve, from whom he 
had been now separated above two hundred years." 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 173 

moved on the face of the waters, and God said, let there be lighg 
and God saw the light," &c. &c. 

But immediately from the beginning of the fourth verse of the 
second chapter, where the second story begins, the style of 
expression is always the Lord God, and this style of expression is 
invariably used to the end of the chapter, and is repeated eleven 
times ; in the one it is always God, and never the Lord God, 
in the other it is always the Lord God and never God. The first 
story contains thirty-four verses, and repeats the single word God 
thirty-five times. The second story contains twenty-two verses, 
and repeats the GO vpouik 1 word Lord- God eleven times; this 
difiVen-e" f i tyle, so often re^ ated, and so uniformly continued, 
shows, that those two chapters, containing two different stories, 
are written by different persons ; it is the same in all the different 
editions of the Bible, in all the languages I have seen. 

Having thus shown, from the difference of style, that those two 
chapters divided, as they properly divide themselves, at the end of 
the third verse of the second chapter, are the work of two differ- 
ent persons, I come to show, from the contradictory matters they 
contain, that they cannot be the work of on e person, and are two 
different stories. 

It is impossible, unless the writer was a lunatic, without memory, 
that one and the same person could say, as is said in the 27th and 
28th verses of the first chapter — *' So God created man in his own 
image, in the image of God created he him ; male and female 
created he them : and God blessed them, and God said unto them, be 
fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and 
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air r 
and every living thing that moveth on the face of the earth." It is, I 
say, impossible that the same person who said this, could afterwards 
say, as is said in the second chapter, ver. 5, and there was not a 
man to till the ground ; and then proceed in the 7th verse to give 
another account of the making a man for the first time, and after- 
wards of the making a woman out of his rib. 

Again, one and the same person could not write, as is written in 
the 29th verse of the first chapter : " Behold I (God) have given 
you every herb bearing seed, which is on the face of the earth ; 
and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree bearing seed, to 
you it shall be for meat," and afterwards say, as is said in the 



174 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKXNE. 



second chapter, that the Lord-God planted a tree in the midst of 
a garden, and forbad man to eat thereof. 

Again, one and the same person could not say, " Thus the 
heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them, and 
on the seventh day God ended his ivork which he had made and 
shortly after set the Creator to work again, to plant a garden, to 
make a man and a woman, &c. as is done in the second chapter. 

Here are evidently two different stories contradicting each 
other. — According to the first, the two sexes, the male and the 
female, were made at the same time. According to the second, 
they were made at different times : the man first, the woman after- 
wards. — According to the first story, they were to have dominion 
over all the earth. According to the second, their dominion was 
limited to a garden. How large a garden it could be, that one 
man and one woman could dress and keep in order, I leave to the 
prosecutor, the judge, the jury, and Mr. Erskine to determine. 

The story of the talking serpent, and its tete-a-tete with Eve ; the 
doleful adventure called the Fall of Man; and how he was turned 
out of this fine garden, and how the garden was afterwards locked 
up and guarded by a flaming sword, (if any one can tell what a 
flaming sword is,) belonging altogether to the second story. They 
have no connexion with the first story. According to the first 
there was no garden of Eden ; no forbidden tree : the scene was 
the whole earth, and the fruit of all the trees was allowed to be 
eaten. 

In giving this example of the strange state of the Bible, it can- 
not be said I have gone out of my way to seek it, for I have taken 
the beginning of the book ; nor can it be said I have made more 
of it, than it makes of itself. That there are two stories is as visible 
to the eye, when attended to, as that there are two chapters, and 
that they have been written by different persons, nobody knows by 
whom. If this then is the strange condition the beginning of the 
Bible is in, it leads, to a just suspicion, that the other parts are no 
better, and consequently it becomes every man's duty to examine 
the case. I have done it for myself, and am satisfied that the 
Bible is fabulous. 

Perhaps I shall be told in the cant-language of the day, as I 
have often been told by the Bishop of Llandaff and others of the 
great and laudable pains, that many pious and learned men have 
taken to explain the obscure, and reconcile the contradictory, or 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 



175 



as they say, the seemingly contradictory passages of the Bible. It 
is because the Bible needs such an undertaking, that is one of the 
first causes to suspect it is not the word of God : this single 
reflection, when carried home to the mind, is in itself a volume. 

What ! does not the Creator of the Universe, the Fountain of 
all Wisdom, the Origin of all Science, the Author of all know- 
ledge, the God of Order, and of Harmony, know how to write ? 
When we contemplate the vast economy of the creation ; when 
we behold the unerring regularity of the visible solar system, the 
perfection with which all its several parts revolve, and by corres- 
ponding assemblage, form a whole ; — when we launch our eye 
into the boundless ocean of space, and see ourselves surrounded 
by innumerable worlds, not one of which varies from its appointed 
place — when we trace the power of the Creator, from a mite to 
an elephant — from an atom to an universe — can we suppose that 
the mind that could conceive such a design, and the power that 
executed it with incomparable perfection, cannot write without 
inconsistency ; or, that a book so written, can be the work of such 
a power 1 The writings of Thomas Paine, even of Thomas Paine, 
need no commentator to explain, expound, arrange, and re-arrange 
their several parts, to render them intelligible — he can relate a 
fact, or write an essay, without forgetting in one page what he has 
written in an other — certainly then, did the God of all perfec- 
tion condescend to write or dictate a book, that book would be as 
perfect as himself is perfect : the Bible is not so, and it is con- 
fessedly not so, by the attempts to amend it. 

Perhaps I shall be told, that though I have produced one in- 
stance, I cannot produce another of equal force. One is sufficient 
to call in question the genuineness or authenticity of any book that 
pretends to be the word of God ; for such a book would, as before 
said, be as perfect as its author is perfect. 

I will, however, advance only four chapters further into the 
book of Genesis, and produce another example that is sufficient to 
invalidate the story to which it belongs. 

We have all heard of Noah's Flood ; and it is impossible to 
think of the whole human race, men, women, children, and infants 
(except one family,) deliberately drowning, without feeling a pain- 
ful sensation ; that heart must be a heart of flint that can contem- 
plate such a scene with tranquillity. There is nothing in the 
ancient mythology, nor in the religion of any people we know of 



176 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 



upon the globe, that records a sentence of their God, or of 
their Gods, so tremendously severe and merciless. If the story 
be not true, we blasphemously dishonor God by believing it, 
and still more so, in forcing, by laws and penalties, that belief 
upon others. I go now to show from the face of the story, that it 
carries the evidence of not being true. 

I know not if the judge, the jury, and Mr. Erskine, who tried 
and convicted Williams, ever read the Bible, or know any thing 
of its contents, and, therefore, I will state the case precisely. 

There was no such people as Jews or Israelites, in the time 
that Noah is said to have lived, and consequently there was no 
such law as that which is called the Jewish or Mosaic Law. It is 
according to the Bible, more than six hundred years from the time 
the flood is said to have happened, to the time of Moses, and con- 
sequently the time the flood is said to have happened, was more 
than six hundred years prior to the law, called the law of Moses, 
even admitting Moses to have been the giver of that law, of which 
there is great cause to doubt. 

We have here two different epochs, or points of time ; that of 
the flood, and that of the law of Moses ; the former more than six 
hundred years prior to the latter. But the maker of the story of 
the flood, whoever he was, has betrayed himself by blundering, for 
he has reversed the order of the times. He has told the story, as 
if the law of Moses was prior to the flood; for he has made God to 
say to Noah, Genesis, chap. vii. ver. 2, " Of every clean beast, 
thou shalt take unto thee by sevens, male and his female, and of 
beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female." This 
is the Mosaic law, and could only be said after that law was 
given, not before. There was no such things as beasts clean 
and unclean in the time of Noah — It is no where said they were 
created so. — They were only declared to be so, as meats, by the 
Mosaic law, and that to the Jews only, and there was no such 
people as Jews in the time of Noah. This is the blundering 
condition in which this strange story stands. 

When we reflect on a sentence so tremendously severe, as that 
of consigning the whole human race, eight persons excepted, to 
deliberate drowning ; a sentence, which represents the Creator in 
a more merciless character than any of those whom we call Pa- 
gans, ever represented the Creator to be, under the figure of any 
of their deities, we ought at least to suspend our belief of it, on a 



LETTER TO MR. ERSH1NE. 



Comparison of the benificent character of the Creator, with the 
vremendous severity of the sentence ; but when we see the story- 
told with such an evident contradiction of circumstances, we ought 
to set it down for nothing better than a Jewish fable, told by no- 
body knows whom, and nobody knows when. 

It is a relief to the genuine and sensible soul of man to find the 
story unfounded. It frees us from two painful sensations at once ; 
that of having hard thoughts of the Creator, on account of the se- 
verity of the sentence ; and that of sympathising in the horrid tra- 
gedy of a drowning world. He who cannot feel the force of what 
I mean, is not, in my estimation of character, worthy the name of 
a human being. 

I have just said there is great cause to doubt, if the law, called 
the law of Moses, was given by Moses ; the books, called the 
books of Moses, which contain, among other things, what is called 
the Mosaic law, are put in front of the Bible, in the manner of a con- 
stitution, with a history annexed to it. Had these books been 
written by Moses, they would undoubtedly have been the oldest 
books in the Bible, and entitled to be placed first, and the law and 
the history they contain, would be frequently referred to in the 
books that follow ; but this is not the case. From the time of 
Othniel, the first of the judges, (Judges, chap. iii. ver. 9,) to the 
end of the book of Judges, w hich contains a period of four hundred 
and ten years, this law, and those books were not in practice, nor 
known among the Jews, nor are they so much as alluded to 
throughout the whole of that period. And if the reader will exam- 
ine the 22d and 23d chapters of the 3d book of Kings, and 34th 
chapter 2d Chron. he will find that no such law, nor any such 
books were known in the time of the Jewish monarchy, and that 
the Jews were Pagans during the whole of that time, and of their 
judges. 

The first time the law, called the law of Moses, made its appear- 
ance, was in the time of Josiah, about a thousand years after Mo- 
ses was dead, it is then said to have been found by accident The 
account of this finding, or pretended finding, is given 2d Chron. 
chap, xxxiv. ver. 14, 15, 16, IS: " Hilkiah the priest found the 
book of the law of the Lord, given by Moses, and Hilkiah answer- 
ed and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the 
law in the house of the Lord, and Hilkiah delivered the book to 
Shaphan, and Shaphan carried the book to the king, and Shaphan 

23 



# 



17S 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKIN'E". 



told the king, (Josiah,) saying, Hilkiah the priest hath given me a 
book." 

In consequence of this finding, which much resembles that of 
poor Chatterton finding manuscript poems of Rowley, the Monk, 
in the Cathedral church at Bristol, or the late finding of manu- 
scripts of Shakspeare in an old chest, (two well known frauds,) 
Josiah abolished the Pagan religion of the Jews, massacred all the 
Pagan priests, though he himself had been a Pagan, as the reader 
will see in the 23d chap. 2d Kings, and thus established in blood, 
the law that is there called the law of Moses, and instituted a pass- 
over in commemoration thereof. The 22d verse speaking of this 
passover, says, " Surely there was not held such a passover from 
the days of the judges, that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the 
kings of Israel, nor the kings of Judah;" and the 25th ver. in 
speaking of this priest-killing Josiah, says, " Like unto him, there 
was no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his hearty 
and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the 
law of Moses ; neither after him arose there any like him." This 
verse, like the former one, is a general declaration against all the 
preceding kings without exception. It is also a declaration against 
all that reigned after him, of which there were four, the whole time 
of whose reigning makes but twenty-two years and six months, be- 
fore the Jews were entirely broken up as a nation and their mo- 
narchy destroyed. It is, therefore, evident that the law, called the 
law of Moses, of which the Jews talk so much, was promulgated 
and established only in the latter time of the Jewish monarchy : 
and it is very remarkable, that no sooner had they established it 
than they were a destroyed people, as if they were punished for 
acting an imposition and affixing the name of the Lord to it, and 
massacreing their former priests under the pretence of religion. 
The sum of the history of the Jews is this— they continued to be 
a nation about a thousand years, they then established a law, which 
they called the law of the Lord given by Moses, and were destroy- 
ed. This is not opinion, but historical evidence. 

Levi the Jew, who has written an answer to the Age of Reason , 
gives a strange account of the law called the law of Moses. 

In speaking of the story of the sun and moon standing still, that 
the Israelites might cut the throats of all their enemies, and hang 
all their kings, as told in Joshua, chap, x., he says, " There is 
also another proof of the reality of this miracle, which is, the appeal 



LETTER TO MR. ERSRINE. 



179 



£hat the author of the book of Joshua makes to the book of Jasher, 
" Is not this written in the book of Jasher ? Hencf," continues 
Levi, " It is manifest that the book commonly called the book of 
Jasher, existed, and was well known at the time the book of 
Joshua was written ; and pray, Sir," continues Levi, " what book 
do you think this was \ why, no other than the (aw of JVluses ! n 
Levi, like the Bishop of Llandaff, and many other guess-work 
commentators, either forgets or does not know, what there ; s in 
one part of the Bible, when he is giving his opinion upon another 
part. 

I did not, however, expect to find so much ignorance in a Jew, 
with respect to the history of his nation, though I might not be 
surprised at it in a bishop. If Levi will look into the account 
given in the first chap. 2d book of Sam. of the Amalakite slaying 
Saul, and bringing the crown and bracelets to David, he will rind 
the following recital, ver. 15, 17, 18 : " And David called one of 
the young men, and said, go near and fall upon him, (the Amala- 
kite,) and he smote him that he died : and David lamented with 
this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son ; also he 
bade them teach the children the use of the bow ; — behold it is 
written in the book of Jasher." If the book of Jasher were what 
Levi calls it, the law of Moses, written by Moses, it is not pos- 
sible that any thing that David said or did could be written in that 
law, since Moses died more than five hundred years before David 
was born ; and, on the other hand, admitting the book of Ja- her 
to be the law called the law of Moses ; that law must have been 
written more than five hundred years after Moses was dead, or it 
could not relate any thing said or done by David. Levi may take 
"which of these cases he pleases, for both are against him. 

I am not going in the course of this letter to write a commentary 
on the Bible. The two instances I have produced, and which 
are taken from the beginning of the Bible, show the necessity of 
examining it. It is a book that has been read more, and examined 
less, than any book that ever existed. Had it come to us an 
Arabic or Chinese book, and said to have been a sacred book by 
the people from whom it came, no apology would have been made 
for the confused and disorderly state it is in. The tales it relates 
of the Creator would have been censured, and our pity excited for 
those who believed them. We should have vindicated the good- 
ness of God against such a book, and preached up the disbelief of 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 



it out of reverence to him. Why then do we not act as honourably 
by the Creator in the one case as we would do in the other. As 
a Chinese book we would have examined it ; — ought we not then 
to examine it as a Jewish book ? The Chinese are a people who 
have all the appearance of far greater antiquity than the Jews, and 
in point of permanency, there is no comparison. They are also a 
people of mild manners and good morals, except where they have 
been corrupted by European commerce. Yet we take the word 
of a restless, bloody-minded people, as the Jews of Palestine 
were, when we would reject the same authority from a better 
people. We ought to see it is habit and prejudice that have pre- 
vented people from examining the Bible. Those of the church of 
England call it holy, because the Jews called it so, and because 
custom and certain acts of parliament call it so, and they read it 
from custom. Dissenters read it for the purpose of doctrinal 
controversy, and are very fertile in discoveries and inventions. 
But none of them read it for the pure purpose of information, and 
of rendering justice to the Creator, by examining'if the evidence it 
contains warrants the belief of its being what it is called. Instead 
of doing this, they take it blindfolded, and will have it to be the 
word of God whether it be so or not. For my own part, my belief 
in the perfection of the Deity will not permit me to believe, that a 
book so manifestly obscure, disorderly, and contradictory, can be 
his. work. I can write a better book myself. This disbelief in 
me proceeds from my belief in the Creator. I cannot pin my faith 
upon the say so of Hilkiah, the priest, who said he found it, or any 
part of it, nor upon Shaphan the scribe, nor upon any priests, nor 
any scribe or man of the law of the present day. 

As to acts of parliament, there are some that say there are 
witches and wizards ; and the persons who made those acts, (it 
was in the time of James the First,) made also some acts which' 
call the Bible the Holy Scriptures, or Word of God. But acts of 
parliament decide nothing with respect to God ; and as these acts 
of parliament making were wrong with respect to witches and 
wizards, they may also be wrong with respect to the book in 
question.* It is, therefore, necessary that the book be examined ; 

* It is afflicting to humanity to reflect that, after the blood shed to estab 
lish the divinity of the Jewish scriptures, it should have become necessary 
to grant a new dispensation, which, through unbelief and conflicting opin 
ions respecting its true construction, has cost as great or greater sacrifices 
tfia,n the former, Catholics, when they had the ascendancy, burnt Protest 



LJSlTER TO MR. ERSKIN'E. 



IS! 



it is our duty to examine it ; and to suppress the right of examina- 
tion is sinful in any government, or in any judge or jury. The 
Bible makes God to say to Moses, Deut. chap. vii. ver. 2, " And 

tants, who, in turn, led Catholics to the stake, and both united in exter- 
minating Dissenters. The Dissenters, when they had the power, pursued 
the same course. The diabolical act of Calvin, in the binning of Dr. Ser- 
vetus, is an awful witness of this fact. Servetus suffered two hours in a 
slow .'ire bef >re life was extinct. The Dissenters, who escaped from Eng- 
land, had scarcely seated themselves in the wilds of America, before they 
began to exterminate from the territory they had seized upon, all those 
who did not profess what they called the orthodox faith. Priests, Quakers, 
and Adamites, were prohibited from entering the territory, on pain of 
death, By priests, they meant clergymen of the Roman Catholic, if not 
also of the Protestant or Episcopal persuasion. Their own priests they 
denominated ministers. These puritans also, particularly in the province of 
Massachusetts-Bay, put many persons to death on the charge of witch- 
craft. There is no account, however, of their having binned any alive, as was 
done in Scotland, about the same period in which the executions took 
place in Massachusetts-Bay. In England, Sir Matthew Hale, a judge emi- 
nent for extraordinary piety, condemned two women to death on the same charge. 

I doubt, however,, if there be any acts of the parliament now in force for 
inflicting pains and penalties for denying the scriptures to be the word of 
God, as our upright judges seem to rely at this time wholly upon what they 
call, the common law, to justify the horrid persecutions which are now carried 
on in England, to the disgrace of a country that boasts so much of its tolerant 
spirit. 

As the common law is derived from the customs of our ancestors, when in a 
rude and barbarous condition, it is not surprising that many of its injunctions 
should be opposed to the ideas, winch a society m a civilized and refined state, 
should deem compatible with justice and right. Accordingly we find that 
government has from time to time annulled some of its most prominent absurd- 
ities ; such as the trials by ordeal, the wager of battle in case of appeal for 
murder, under a belief that a supernatural pow r er would interfere to save 
the innocent and destroy the guilty in such a combat, &c. Yet much remains 
nearly as ridiculous, that requires a further and more liberal use of the 
pruning knife. 

"In the days of the Stuarts, [A. D. 1670, 22d year of Charles II. See 
the Republican, voL 5, p. 22.] William Penn was indicted at Common Law 
for a riot and breach of the peace on having delivered his sentiments to a 
congregation of people hi Grace-church-street : he told the judge and the jury 
that Common Law was an abuse, and no law at all ; and in spite of the 
threats, the fines and imprisonments inflicted on his jury, they acquitted him 
on this plea. William Penn found an honest jury." 

The introduction, however, of Christianity, as composing a part of this Com- 
mon Law, (bad as much of it is,) is proved to be a fraud or misconception of 
the old Norman French ; as I shall show by an extract of a letter from 
Thomas Jefferson to Major Cartwright, bearing date 5th June, 1S24. 

For a more full development of this subject, see Sampson's Anniversary 
Discourse, before the Historical Society of New- York. Editor. 
Extract from Jtfft:rson''s letter. 

" I am glad to find in your book [The English Constitution, produced and 
illustrated] a formal contradiction, at length, of the judiciary usurpation of 
legislative power ; for such the judges have usurped in their repeated decisions, 
that Christianity is a part of the common law. The proof of the contrary, 
which you have adduced, is incontrovertible : to wit, that the common law 
existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet Pagans ; at a time when they had 
never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced, or knew that such a character 
had ever existed. But it may amuse you to show when, and by what means, 
they stole this law in upon us. In a case of duare Impejlit, hi the Year Book, 
34 Henry VI. fo. 28, [Anno 1453,] a question was made how far the ecclesi- 
astical law was to be respected in a common law court. And Prisot, Chief 



182 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 



when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt 
smite them, and utterly destroy them, thou shalt make no cove- 
nant with them, nor show mercy unto them." Not all the priests, 
nor scribes, nor tribunals in the world, nor all the authority of man, 
shall make me believe that God ever gave such a Robesperian 
precept as that of showing no mercy • and consequently it is im- 
possible that I, or any person who believes as reverentially of the 
Creator as I do, can believe such a book to be the word of God. 

Justice, gave his opinion in these words :— ' A tiel leis, que lis de saint, eglise 
ont en ancien scripture, covient a nous a donner credence : car ceo Commen 
Ley sur quels touts manners leis sont foddes. Et auxy, Sir, nous smnus 
obliges de conustre lour ley de saint eglise : et semblablement ils sont obliges 
de conustre nostre ley— Et, Sir, si poit apperer or a nous que l'evesque adfait 
come un ordinary fera en tiel cas, adong nous devons ceo adjuger bon, ou 
auterment nemy,' " &c. ["To such laws as they of holy church have in ancient 
writing, it behoves us to give credence : for it is that common law upon which 
all kinds of law are founded ; and therefore, Sir, are we bound to know their 
law of holy church, and in like manner are they obliged to know our laws. 
And, Sir, if it should appear now to us, that the bishop had done what an 
ordinary ought to do in like case, then we should adjudge it good, and not 
otherwise."] — The canons of the church anciently were incorporated with 
the laws of the land, and of the same authority. See Dr. Henry's Hist. G. 
Britain. Editor. 

See S. C. Fitzh, abr. qu. imp. 89. Bro. abr. qu. imp. 12. Finch in his 1st Book, 
e. 3, is the first afterwards who quotes the case, and mis-states it thus : " ' To 
such laws of the church as have warrant in Holy Scripture, our law giveth 
credence," and cites Prisot ; mistranslating ' ancient Scripture' into 1 holy Scrip- 
ture ;' whereas Prisot palpably says, 'so such laws as those of holy church 
have in ancient writing, it is proper for us to give credence to wit — 
to their ancient written laws. This was in 1613, a century and a 
half after the dictum of Prisot. Wingate, in 1658, erects this false transla- 
tion into a maxim of the common law, copying the words of Finch, but citing 
Prisot. Wingate, max. 3, and Sheppard, title 'Religion,' in 1675, copies the 
same mistranslation, quoting the Y. B. Finch and Wingate. Hale expresses 
it in these words : ' Christianity is parcel of the law of England' — 1 Ventris 
293. 3. Keb. 607, but quotes no authority. By these echoings and re-echoings 
from one to another, it had become so established in 1728, that in the case of 
the King vs. Woolston, 2. Stra. 834, the court would not suffer it to be 
debated, whether to write against Christianity was punishable in the temporal 
cou t at common law. Wood, therefore, 409, ventures still to vary the phrase, 
and say, ' that all blasphemy and profaneness are offences by the common 
law ;' and cites 2 Stra. — Then Blackstone, in 1763, iv. 59, repeats the -words 
of Hale, that ' Christianity is part of the law of England,' citing Ventris and 
Strange. And finally, Lord Mansfield, with a little qualification, in Evan's 
case in 1767, says, that ' the essential principles of revealed religion are part 
of the common law' — thus ingulphing Bible, Testament, and all into the com- 
mon law, without citing any authority. And thus we find this chain of 
authorities hanging, link by link, one upon another, and all ultimately on one 
and the same hook, and that a mistranslation of the words ' ancient scripture, 1 
used by Prisot. Finch quotes Prisot ; Wingate does the same ; Sheppard 
quotes Prisot, Finch, and Wingate. Hale cites nobody. The court, in 
Woolston's case, cites Hale ; Wood cite Woolston's case ; Blackstone quotes 
Woolston's case and Hale ; and Lord Mansfield, like Hale, ventures it on his 
own authority. Here I might defy the best read lawyer to produce another 
scrip of authority for this judiciary forgery; and I might go on further to 
show how some of the An°;lo-Saxon priests interpolated into the text of Alfred's 
laws the 20th, 21st, 2#d, and 23d chapters of Exodus, and the 15th of the Acts 
pf the Apostles, from the 23d to the 29th verses ; but this would lead my pen, 
&nd your patience too far. What a conspiracy this, between church and state V? 



LETTER TO MR. ERSlClK£« 



183 



There have been, and still are, those, who, whilst they profess 
to believe the Bible to be the word of God, affect to turn it into 
ridicule. Taking their profession and conduct together, they act 
blasphemously ; because they act as if God himself was not to be 
believed. The case is exceedingly different with respect to the 
Age of Reason. That book is written to show from the Bible it- 
self, that there is abundant matter to suspect it is not the word of 
God. and that we have been imposed upon, first by Jews, and af- 
terwards by priests and commentators. 

Not one of those who have attempted to write answers to the 
Age of Reason, have taken the ground upon which only an answer 
could be written. The case in question is not upon any point of 
doctrine, but altogether upon a matter of fact. Is the book call- 
ed the Bible the word of God, or is it not ? If it can be proved 
to be so, it ought to be believed as such ; if not, it ought not to 
be believed as such. This is the true state of the case. The 
Age of Reason produces evidence to show, and I have in this let- 
ter produced additional evidence, that it is not the word of God. 
Those who take the contrary side, should prove that it is. But 
this they have not done, nor attempted to do, and consequently 
they have done nothing to the purpose. 

The prosecutors of Williams have shrunk from the point, as the 
answerers have done. They have availed themselves of prejudice 
instead of proof. If a writing was produced in a court of judica- 
ture, said to be the writing of a certain person, and upon the rea- 
lity or non-reality of which, some matter at issue depended, the 
point to be proved would be, that such writing was the writing of 
such person. Or if the issue depended upon certain words, which 
some certain person was said to have spoken, the point to be pro- 
ved would be, that such words were spoken by such person ; and 
Mr. Erskine would contend the case upon this ground. A certain 
book is said to be the word of God. What is the proof that it is 
so ? for upon this the whole depends ; and if it cannot be proved 
to be so, the prosecution fails for want of evidence. 

The prosecution against Williams charges him with publishing 
a book, entitled The Age of Reason, which it says, is an impious 
blasphemous pamphlet, tending to ridicule and bring into contempt 
the Holy Scriptures. Nothing is more easy than to find abusive- 
words, and English prosecutions are famous for this species of 
vulgarity. The charge however, is sophistical ; for the charge, 



134 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 



as growing out of the pamphlet, should have stated, not as it now 
states, to ridicule and bring into contempt the Holy Scriptures 9 
but to show, that the book called the Holy Scriptures are not the 
Holy Scriptures. It is one thing if I ridicule a work as being 
written by a certain person ; but it is quite a different thing if I 
write to prove that such work was not written by such person. In 
the first case, I attack the person through the work ; in the other 
case, i defend the honor of the person against the work. This is 
what the Jlge of Reason does, and consequently the charge in the 
indictment is sophistically stated. Every one will admit, that if 
the Bible be not the word of God, we err in believing it to be his 
word, and ought not to believe it. Certainly, then, the ground 
the prosecution should take, would be to prove that the Bible is in 
fact what it is called. But this the prosecution has not done, and 
cannot do. 

In all cases the prior fact must be proved, before the subsequent 
facts can be admitted in evidence. In a prosecution for adultery, 
the fact of marriage, which is the prior fact, must be proved, be- 
fore the facts to prove adultery can be received. If the fact of 
marriage cannot be proved, adultery cannot be proved ; and if the 
prosecution cannot prove the Bible to be the word of God, the 
charge of blasphemy is visionary and groundless. 

In Turkey they might prove, if the case happened, that a cer- 
tain book was bought of a certain bookseller, and that the said 
book was written against the Koran. In Spain and Portugal they 
might prove, that a certain book was bought of a certain booksel- 
ler, and that the said book was written against the infallibility of the 
Pope. Under the ancient mythology they might have proved, that 
a certain writing was bought of a certain person, and that the said 
writing was written against the belief of a plurality of Gods, and in 
the support of the belief of one God. Socrates was condemned 
for a work of this kind. 

All these are but subsequent facts, and amount to nothing, un- 
less the prior facts be proved. The prior fact, with respect to the 
first case, is, Is the Koran the word of God ] With respect to 
the second, Is the infallibility of the Pope a truth 1 With respect 
to the third, Is the belief of a plurality of gods a true belief? and 
in like manner with respect to the present prosecution, Is the book 
called the Bible the word of God t If the present prosecution 
prove no more than could be proved in any or all of these cases. 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 



185 



it proves only as they do, or as an inquisition would prove ; and 
in this view of the case, the prosecutors ought at least to leave 
off reviling that infernal institution, the inquisition. The prosecu- 
tion, however, though it may injure the individual, may promote 
the cause of truth ; because the manner in which it has been con- 
ducted, appears a confession to the world, that there is no evi- 
dence to prove that the Bible is the word of God. On what au- 
thority then do we believe the many strange stones that the Bible 
tells of God. 

This prosecution has been carried on through the medium of 
what is called a special jury, and the whole of a special jury is 
nominated by the master of the crown office. Mr. Erskine vaunts 
himself upon the bill he brought into parliament with respect to 
trials, for what the government party calls libels. But if in crown 
prosecutions, the master of the crown office is to continue to ap- 
point the whole special jury, which he does by nominating the for- 
ty-eight persons from which the solicitor of each pnrty is to strike 
out twelve, Mr. Erskine's bill is only vapour and smoke. The 
root of the grievance lies in the manner of forming the jury, and 
to this Mr. Erskine's bill applies no remedy. 

When the trial of Williams came on, only eleven of the special 
jurymen appeared, and the trial was adjourned. In cases where 
the whole number do not appear, it is customary to make up the 
deficiency by taking jurymen from persons present in court. This, 
in the law term, is called a Tales. Why was not this done in this 
case ? Reason will suggest, that they did not choose to depend on 
a man accidentally taken. When the trial re-commenced, the 
whole of the special jury appeared, and Williams was convicted ; 
it is folly to contend a cause where the whole jury is nominated by 
one of the parties. I will relate a recent case that explains a great 
deal with respect to special juries in crown prosecutions. 

On the trial of Lambert and others, printers and proprietors of 
the Morning Chronicle, for a libel, a special jury was struck, on 
the prayer of the Attorney-General, who used to be called Diabo- 
lus Regis, or King's Devil. 

Only seven or eight of the special jury appeared, and the Attor- 
ney-General not praying a Tales, the trial stood over to a future 
day ; when it was to be brought on a second time, the Attorney- 
General prayed for a new special jury, but as this was not admis- 
sible, the original special jury was summoned. Only eight of then) 

24 



186 LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 

appeared, on which the Attorney-General said, 44 As I cannot, on 
a second trial, have a special jury, I will pray a Tales." Four 
persons were then taken from the persons present in court, and 
added to the eight special jurymen. The jury went out at two 
o'clock to consult on their verdict, and the judge (Kenyon) un- 
derstanding they were divided, and likely to be some time in mak- 
ing up their minds, retired from the bench, and went home. At 
seven, the jury went, attended by an officer of the court, to the 
Judge's house, and delivered a verdict, " Guilty of publishing, but 
with no malicious intention." The Judge said, " I cannot record 
this verdict : it is no verdict at all." The jury withdrew, and af- 
ter sitting in consultation till five in the morning, brought in a ver- 
dict, Not Guilty. Would this have been the case, had they been 
all special jurymen nominated by the Master of the Crown-office? 
This is one of the cases that ought to open the eyes of people with 
respect to the manner of forming special juries. 

On the trial of Williams, the Judge prevented the counsel for 
the defendant proceeding in the defence. The prosecution had 
selected a number of passages from the Age of Reason, and in- 
serted them in the indictment. The defending counsel was se- 
lecting other passages to show, that the passages in the indictment 
were conclusions drawn from premises, and unfairly separated 
therefrom in the indictment. The Judge said, he did not know 
hoiv to act ; meaning thereby whether to let the counsel proceed 
in the defence or not, and asked the jury if they wished to hear the 
passages read which the defending counsel had selected. The ju- 
ry said no, and the defending counsel was in consequence silent. 
Mr. Erskine then, FalstafT like, having all the field to himself, and 
no enemy at hand, laid about him most heroically, and the jury 
found the defendant guilty. I know not if Mr. Erskine ran out 
of court and hallooed, huzza for the Bible and the trial by jury. 

Robespierre caused a decree to be passed during the trial of 
Brissot and others, that after a trial had lasted three days, (the 
whole of which time, in the case of Brissot, was taken up by the 
prosecuting party,) the judge should ask the jury (who were then 
a packed jury) if they were satisfied? If the jury said yes, the 
trial ended, and the jury proceeded to give their verdict, without 
hearing the defence of the accused party. It needs no depth of 
wisdom to make an application of this case. 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 



187 



I will now state a case to show that the trial of Williams is not a 
trial, according to Kenyon's own explanation of law. 

On a late trial in London (Selthcnsrereus Hoossman) on a pol- 
icy of insurance, one of the jurymen, Mr. Dunnage, after hearing 
one side of the case, and without hearing the other side, got up and 
said, it was as legal a f)olicy of insurance as ever was written. The 
Judge, who was the same as presided on the trial of Williams, re- 
plied, that it was a great misfortune when any gentleman of the ju- 
ry makes up his mind on a cause before it was finished. Mr. Ers- 
kine, who in that cause was counsel for the defendant, (in this he 
was against the defendant,) cried out, it is worse than a misfortune, 
it is a fault. The Judge, in his address to the jury in summing 
up the evidence, expatiated upon, and explained the parts which 
the law assigned to the counsel on each side, to the witnesses, and 
to the J udge, and said, " When all this was done, and not until then, 
it icas the business of the jury to declare what th e just ice of ihc case 
was ; and that it was extremely rash and imprudent in any man to 
draw a conclusion before, all the premises were laid before them y 
upon which that conclusion was to be grounded." According then 
to Kenyon's own doctrine, the trial of Williams is an irregular tri- 
al, the verdict an irregular verdict, and as such is not recordable. 

As to special juries, they are but modern ; and were instituted 
for the purpose of determining cases at law between merchants ; 
because, as the method of keeping merchants' accounts differs from 
that of common tradesmen, and their business, by lying much in 
foreign bills of exchange, insurance, &c, is of a different descrip- 
tion to that of common tradesmen, it might happen that a common 
jury might not be competent to form a judgment. The law that 
instituted special juries, makes it necessary that the jurors be 
merchants, or of the degree of squires. A special jury in London 
is generally composed of merchants; and in the country, of men 
called country squires, that is, fox-hunters, or men qualified to 
hunt foxes. The one may decide very well upon a case of pounds, 
shillings, and pence, or of the counting-house : and the other of 
the jockey-club or the chase. But who would not laugh, that be- 
cause such men can decide such cases, they can also be jurors 
upon theology. Talk with some London merchants about scrip- 
ture, and they will understand you mean scrip, and tell you how 
much it is worth at the Stock Exchange. A sk them about theolo- 
gy, and they will say they know of no such gentleman upon 



LETTER TO JJtR. ERSKINE* 



Change. Tell some country squires of the sun and moon stand- 
ing still, the one on the top of a hill and the other in a valley, and 
they will swear it is a lie of one's own making. Tell them that 
God Almighty ordered a man to make a cake and bake it with a 
t — d and eat it, and they will say it is one of Dean Swift's black- 
guard stories. Tell them it is in the Bible, and they will lay a 
bowl of punch it is not, and leave it to the parson of the parish to 
decide. Ask them also about theology, and they will say, they 
know of no such an one on the turf. An appeal to such juries 
serves to bring the Bible into more ridicule than any thing the au- 
thor of the Jige of Reason has written ; and the manner in which 
the trial has been conducted shows, that the prosecutor dares not 
come to the point, nor meet the defence of the defendant. But all 
other cases apart, on what ground of right, otherwise than on the 
right assumed by an inquisition, do such prosecutions stand 1 Re- 
ligion is a private affair between every man and his Maker, and no 
tribunal or third party has a right to interfere between them. It is 
not properly a thing of this world ; it is only practised in this world ; 
but its object is in a future world ; and it is no otherwise an ob- 
ject of just laws, than for the purpose of protecting the equal rights 
of all, however various their beliefs may be. If one man choose to 
believe the book called the Bible to be the word of God, and another, 
from the convinced idea of the purity and perfection of God, com* 
pared with the contradictions the book contains — from the lascivi- 
ousness of some of its stories, like that of Lot getting drunk andde^ 
bauching his two daughters, which is not spoken of as a crime, 
and for which the most absurd apologies are made — from the im- 
morality of some of its precepts, like that of showing no mercy — < 
and from the total want of evidence on the case, thinks he ought 
not to believe it to be the word of God, each of them has an equal 
right ; and if the one has the right to give his reasons for believing 
it to be so, the other has an equal right to give his reasons for be- 
lieving the contrary. Any thing that goes beyond this rule is an 
inquisition. Mr. Erskine talks of his moral education ; Mr. 
Erskine is very little acquainted with theological subjects, if he 
does not know there is such a thing as a sincere and religious be- 
lief that the Bible is not the word of God. This is my belief ; it 
is the belief of thousands far more learned than Mr. Erskine ; and 
it is a belief that is every day increasing. It .is not infidelity, as 
Mr. Erskine prophanely and abusively calls it ; it is the direct rq* 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 



189 



verse of infidelity. It is a pure religious belief, founded on the 
idea of the perfection of the Creator. If the Bible be the word of 
God, it needs not the wretched aid of prosecutions to support it ; 
and you might with as much propriety make a law to protect the 
sunshine, as to protect the Bible, if the Bible, like the sun, be the 
work of God. We see that God takes good care of the Creation 
he has made. He suffers no part of it to be extinguished : and 
he will take the same care of his word, if he ever gave one. But 
men ought to be reverentially careful and suspicious how they as- 
cribe books to him as his word, which from this confused condi- 
tion would dishonor a common scribbler, and against which there 
is abundant evidence, and every cause to suspect imposition. 
Leave theu the Bible to itself. God will take care of it if he has 
any thing to do with it, as he takes care of the sun and the moon, 
which need not your laws for their better protection. As the two 
instances I have produced, in the beginning of this letter, from the 
book of Genesis, the one respecting the account called the Mo- 
saic account of the Creation, the other of the Flood, sufficiently 
show the necessity of examining the Bible, in order to ascertain 
what degree of evidence there is for receiving or rejecting it as a 
sacred book ; I shall not add more upon that subject ; but in order 
to show Mr. Erskine that there are religious establishments for 
public worship which make no profession of faith of the books 
called holy scriptures, nor admit of priests, I will conclude with an 
account of a society lately began in Paris, and which is very rapid- 
ly extending itself. 

The society takes the name of Theophilantropes, which would 
be rendered in English by the word Theophilanthropists, a word 
compounded of three Greek words, signifying God, Love, and 
Man. The explanation given to this word is, Lovers of God and 
JWan, or Adorers of God and Friends of JSlan, adorateurs de 
Dieu et amis des homines. The society proposes to publish each 
year a volume, the first volume is just published, entitled 

RELIGIOUS YEAR OF THE THEOPHILANTHROPISTS ; 

OR, 

ADORERS OF GOD, AND FRIENDS OF MAN. 

Being a collection of the discourses, lectures, hymns, and can- 
ticles, for all the religious and moral festivals of the Theophilan- 
thropists during the course of the year, whether in their public tern- 



190 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 



pies or in their private families, published by the author of the 
Manuel of the Theophiianthropists. 

The volume of this year, which is the first, contains 214 pages 
duodecimo. 

The following is the table of contents : — 

1. Precise history of the Theophiianthropists. 

2. Exercises common to all the festivals. 

3. Hymn, No. I, God of whom the universe speaks. 

4. Discourse upon the existence of God. 

5. Ode II. The heavens instruct the earth. 

6. Precepts of wisdom, extracted from the book of the Ado- 

rateurs. 

7. Canticle, No. III. God Creator, soul of nature. 

8. Extracts from divers moralists, upon the nature of God, and 

upon the physical proofs of his existence. 

9. Canticle, No. IY. Let us bless at our waking the God who 

gives us light. 

10. Moral thoughts extracted from the Bible. 

11. Hymn, No. V. Father of the universe. 

12. Contemplation of nature on the first days of the spring. 

13. Ode, No VI. Lord in thy glory adorable. 

14. Extracts from the moral thoughts of Confucius. 

15. Canticle in praise of actions, and thanks for the works of the 

creation. 

16. Continuation from the moral thoughts of Confucius. 

17. Hymn, No. VII. All the universe is full of thy magnificence. 

18. Extracts from an ancient sage of India upon the duties of 

families. 

19. Upon the spring. 

20. Moral thoughts of divers Chinese authors. 

21. Canticle, No. VIII. Every thing celebrates the glory of the 

eternal. 

22. Continuation of the moral thoughts of Chinese authors. 

23. Invocation for the country. 

24. Extracts from the moral thoughts of Theognis. 

25. Invocation, Creator of man. 

26. Ode, No. IX. Upon Death. 

27. Extracts from the book of the Moral Universal, upon happi- 

ness. 

28. Ode, No. X. Supreme Author of Nature. 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 



191 



INTRODUCTION. 

ENTITLED 

PRECISE HISTORY OF THE THEOPHILANTHROPISTS. 

" Towards the month of Vendimiaire, of the year 5, (Sept. 
1796,) there appeared at Paris, a small work, entitled, Manuel of 
the Theoantropophiles, since called, for the sake of easier pro- 
nunciation. Theophilantropes, (Theophilanthropists,) published 
byC . 

" The worship set forth in this Manuel, of which the origin id 
from the beginning of the world, was then professed by some fami- 
lies m the silence of domestic life. But no sooner was the 
Manuel published, than some persons, respectable for their know- 
ledge and their manners, saw, in the formation of a society open 
to the public, an easy method of spreading moral religion, and of 
leading by degrees great numbers to the knowledge thereof, who 
appear to have forgotten it. This consideration ought of itself 
not to leave indifferent those persons who know that morality and 
religion, which is the most solid support thereof, are necessary to 
the maintenance of society, as well as to the happiness of the 
individual. These considerations determined the families of the 
Theophilanthropists to unite publicly for the exercise of their 
worship. 

" The first society of this kind opened in the month of Nivose, 
year 5, (Jan. 1797,) in the street Dennis, No. 34, corner of Lom- 
bard-street. The care of conducting this society was under- 
taken by five fathers of families. They adopted the Manuel of 
the Theophilanthropists. They agreed to hold their days of pub- 
lic worship on the days corresponding to Sundays, but without 
making this a hindrance to other societies to choose such other 
day as they thought more convenient. Soon after this, more so- 
cieties were opened, of which some celebrate on the decadi, (tenth 
day,) and others on the Sunday : it was also resolved that the com- 
mittee should meet one hour each week for the purpose of pre- 
paring or examining the discourses and lectures proposed for the 
next general assembly. That the general assemblies should be 
called Fetes (festivals) religious and moral. That those festivals 
should be conducted in principle and form, in a manner, as. not to 
be considered, as the festivals of an exclusive worship ; and that 



192 



LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 



in recalling those who might not be attached to any particular wor- 
ship, those festivals might also be attended as moral exercises by 
disciples of every sect, and consequently avoid, by scrupulous 
care, every thing that might make the society appear under the 
name of a sect. The society adopts neither rites nor priesthood, 
and it will never loose sight of the resolution not to advance any 
thing as a society, inconvenient to any sect or sects, in any time 
or country, and under any government. 

" It will be seen, that it is so much the more easy for the society 
to keep within this circle, because, that the dogmas of the Theo- 
philanthropists are those upon which all the sects have agreed, 
that their moral is that upon which there has never been the least 
dissent ; and that the name they have taken, expresses the double 
end of all the sects, that of leading to the adoration of God and 
love of man. 

" The Theophilanthropists do not call themselves the disciples 
of such or such a man. They avail themselves of the wise pre- 
cepts that have been transmitted by writers of all countries and 
in all ages. The reader will find in the discourses, lectures, 
hymns, and canticles, which the Theophilanthropists have adopted 
for their religious and moral festivals, and which they present 
under the title of Annee Religieuse, extracts from moralists, 
ancient and modern, divested of maxims too severe, or too loosely 
conceived, or contrary to piety, whether towards God or toward^ 
man." 

Next follow the dogmas of the Theophilanthropists, or things 
they profess to believe. These are but two, and are thus expres- 
sed, les Theophilantropes croient a P existence de Dieu, et a Vim- 
mortalite de fame. The Theophilanthropists believe in the ex- 
istence of God, and the immortality of the soul. 

The Manuel of the Theophilanthropists, a small volume of sixty 
pages, duodecimo, is published separately, as is also their ca- 
techism, which is of the same size. The principles of the Theo- 
philanthropists are the same as those published in the first part 
of the Age of Reason in 1793, and in the second part, in 1795, 
The Theophilanthropists, as a society, are silent upon all the 
things they do not profess to believe, as the sacredness of the 
books called the Bible, &c. &c. They profess the immortality 
of the soul, but they are silent on the immortality of the body, or 



LETTER TO MR. ER3K.TNEV 



that which the church calls the resurrection. The author of the 
Age of Reason gives reasons for every thing he disbelieves, as well 
as for those he believes ; and where this cannot be done with safety, 
the government is a despotism, and the church an inquisition. 

It is more than three years since the irst part of the Age of 
Reason was published, and more than a year and a half since the 
publication of the second part. : the bishop of Llandaff undertook to 
write an answer to the second part ; and it was not until after 
it was known that the author of the Age of Reason would reply 
to the bishop, that the prosecution against the book was set on 
foot ; and which is said to be carried on by some clergy of the 
English church. If the bishop is one of them, and the object be 
to prevent an exposure of the numerous and gross errors he has 
committed in his work, (and which he wrote when report said that 
Thomas Paine was dead,) it is a confession that he feels the weak- 
ness of his cause, and finds himself unable to maintain it. In 
this case he has given me a triumph I did not seek, and Mr. 
Erskine, the herald of the prosecution, has proclaimed it. 

THOMAS PAINE. 



A 



DISCOURSE 

DELIVERED TO THE SOCIETY OF THEOPHILAN- 
THROPISTS AT PARIS. 

Religion has two principal enemies, Fanaticism and Infidelity, 
or that which is called atheism. The first requires to be 
combated by reason and morality, the other by natural philoso- 
phy. 

The existence of a God is the first dogma of the Theophilan- 
thropists. It is upon this subject that I solicit your attention ; for 
though it has been often treated of, and that most sublimely, the 
subject is inexhaustible ; and there will always remain something 
to be said that has not been before advanced. I go, therefore, to 
open the subject, and to crave your attention to the end. 

The universe is the Bible of a true Theophilanthropist. It is 
there that he reads of God. It is there that the proofs of his ex- 
istence are to be sought and to be found. As to written or print- 
ed books, by whatever name they are called, they are the works of 
man's hands, and carry no evidence in themselves that God is the 
author of any of them. It must be in something that man could 
not make, that we must seek evidence for our belief, and that 
something is the universe ; the true Bible ; the inimitable work of 
God. 

Contemplating the universe, the whole system of creation, in 
this point of light, we shall discover, that all that which is called 
natural philosophy is properly a divine study. It is the study of 
God through his works. It is the best study by which we can 
arrive at a knowledge of his existence, and the only one by which 
we can gain a glimpse of his perfection. 

Do we want to contemplate his power 1 We see it in the 



196 



DISCOURSE T€> THE SOCIETY 



immensity of the Creation. Do we want to contemplate his wis- 
dom 1 We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incom- 
prehensible Whole is governed. Do we want to contemplate 
his munificence 1 We see it in the abundance with which he fills 
the earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy ? We see it 
in his not withholding that abundance even from the unthankful. 
In fine, do we want :o know what God is I Search not written 
or printed books, but the scripture called the Creation. 

It has been the error of thu schools to teach astronomy, and ali 
the other sciences, and subjects of natural philosophy, as accom- 
plishments only ; whereas they should be taught theologically, or 
with reference to the Being who is the author of them : for all the 
principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make, or 
invent, or contrive principles. He can only discover them ; and 
he ought to look through the discovery to the author. 

When we examine an extraordinary piece of machinery, an 
astonishing pile of architecture, a well executed statue, or an 
highly finished painting, where life and action are imitated, and 
habit only prevents our mistaking a surface of light and shade for 
cubical solidity, our ideas are naturally led to think of the exten- 
sive genius and talents of the artist. When we study the elements 
of geometry, we think of Euclid. When we speak of gravitation, 
we think of Newton. How then is it, that when we study the 
works of God in the Creation, we stop short, and do not think of 
God 1 It is from the error of the schools in having taught those 
subjects as accomplishments only, and thereby separated the study 
of them from the being who is the author of them. 

The schools have made the study of theology to consist in the 
study of opinions in written or printed books ; whereas theology 
should be studied in the works or books of the Creation. The 
study of theology in books of opinions has often produced fana- 
ticism, rancour, and cruelty of temper ; and from hence have pro- 
ceeded the numerous persecutions, the fanatical quarrels, the re- 
ligious burnings and massacres, that have desolated Europe. But 
the study of theology in the works of the Creation produces a di- 
rect contrary effect. The mind becomes at once enlightened and 
serene ; copy of the scene it beholds : information and adora- 
tion go hand in hand ; and all the social faculties become en* 
Ifirged,. 



©F THEOPHILANTHROPISTS. 



197 



The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools, in teach- 
ing natural philosophy as an accomplishment only, has been that of 
generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking 
through the works of the Creation to the Creator himself, they 
stop short, and employ the knowledge they acquire to create 
doubts of his existence. They labour with studied ingenuity to 
ascribe every thing they behold to innate properties of matter ; 
and jump over all the rest, by saying, that matter is eternal. 

Let us examine this subject ; it is worth examining ; for if we 
examine it through all its cases, the result will be, that the exist- 
ence of a superior cause, or that which man calls God, will be 
discoverable by philosopnieal principles. 

In the first place, admitting matter to have properties, as we see 
it has, the question still remains, how came matter by those pro- 
perties ? To this they will answer, that matter possessed those 
properties eternally. This is not solution, but assertion : and to 
deny it is equally impossible of proof as to assert it. It is then 
necessary to go further ; and, therefore, I say, if there exist a cir- 
cumstance that is not a property of matter, and without which the 
universe, or, to speak in a limited degree, the solar system, com- 
posed of planets and a sun, could not exist a moment ; all the 
arguments of atheism, drawn from properties of matter, and 
applied to account for the universe, will be overthrown, and the 
existence of a superior cause, or that which man calls God, be- 
comes discoverable, as is before said, by natural philosophy. 

I go now to show that such a circumstance exists, and what 
it is : 

The universe is composed of matter, and, as a system, is sus- 
tained by motion. Motion is not a property of matter, and with- 
out this motion, the solar system could not exist. Were motion 
a property of matter, that undiscovered and undiscoverable thing 
called perpetual motion would establish itself. It is because 
motion is not a property of matter that perpetual motion is an 
impossibility in the hand of every being but that of the Creator of 
motion. When the pretenders to atheism can produce perpetual 
motion, and not till then, they may expect to be credited. 

The natural state of matter, as to place, is a state of rest. Mo- 
tion, or change of place, is the effect of an external cause acting 
upon matter. As to that faculty of matter that is called gravita- 
tion, it is the influence which two or more bodies have reciprocally 



198 



DISCOURSE TO TPIE SOCIETY 



on each other to unite and to be at rest. Every thing which has 
hitherto been discovered, with respect to the motion of the planets 
in the system, relates only to the laws by which motion acts, and 
not to the cause of motion. Gravitation, so far from being the 
cause of motion to the planets that compose the solar system, 
would be the destruction of the solar system, were revolutionary 
motion to cease ; for as the action of spinning upholds a top, the 
revolutionary motion upholds the planets in their orbits, and pre- 
vents them from gravitating and forming one mass with the sun. 
In one sense of the word, philosophy knows, and atheism says, 
that matter is in perpetual motion. But motion here refers to the 
state of matter, and that only on the surface of the earth. It is 
either decomposition, which is continually destroying the form of 
bodies of matter, or re-composition, which renews that matter in 
the same or another form, as the decomposition of animal or vege- 
table substances enter into the composition of other bodies. But 
the motion that upholds the solar system is of an entire different 
kind, and is not a property of matter. It operates also to an entire 
different effect. It operates to perpetual preservation, and to 
prevent any change in the state of the system. 

Giving then to matter all the properties which philosophy knows 
it has, or all that atheism ascribes to it, and can prove, and even 
supposing matter to be eternal, it will not account for. the system 
of the universe, or of the solar system, because it will not account 
for motion, and it is motion that preserves it. When, therefore, 
we discover a circumstance of such immense importance, that 
without it the universe could not exist, and for which neither mat- 
ter, nor any, nor all the properties of matter can account ; we are 
by necessity forced into the rational and comfortable belief of the 
existence of a cause superior to matter, and that cause man calls 
God. 

As to that which is called nature, it is no other than the laws by 
which motion and action of every kind, with respect to unintel- 
ligible matter is regulated. And when we speak of looking 
through nature up to nature's God, we speak philosophically the 
same rational language as when we speak of looking through 
human laws up to the power that ordained them. 

God is the power or first cause, nature is the law, and matter is 
the subject acted upon. 



OP THEOPIIILANTIIROriSTS. 199 

Itut infidelity, by ascribing every phenomenon to properties of 
matter, conceives a system for which it cannot account, and yet 
it pretends to demonstration. It reasons from what it sees on the 
surface of the earth, but it does not carry itself to the solar sys- 
tem existing by motion. It sees upon the surface a perpetual 
decomposition and re-composition of matter. It sees that an oak 
produces an acorn, an acorn an oak, a bird an egg, an egg a bird, 
and so on. In things of this kind it sees something which it calls 
natural cause, but none of the causes it sees is the cause of 
that motion which preserves the solar system. 

Let us contemplate this wonderful and stupendous system con- 
sisting of matter and existing by motion. It is not matter in a 
state of rest, nor in a state of decomposition or re-composition. 
It is matter systematized in perpetual orbicular or circular motion. 
As a system that motion is the life of it, as animation is life to an 
animal body ; deprive the system of motion, and, as a system, it 
must expire. Who then breathed into the system the life of mo- 
tion ? What power impelled the planets to move, since motion 
is not a property of the matter of which they are composed ? If 
we contemplate the immense velocity of this motion, our wonder 
becomes increased, and our adoration enlarges itself in the same 
proportion. To instance only one of the planets, that of the earth 
we inhabit, its distance from the sun, the centre of the orbits of all 
the planets, is, according to observations of the transit of the 
planet Venus, about one hundred million miles ; consequently, the 
diameter of the orbit, or circle in which the earth moves round the 
sun, is double that distance ; and the measure of the circumfe- 
rence of the orbit, taken as three times its diameter, is six hundred 
million miles. The earth performs this voyage in 365 days and 
some hours, and consequently moves at the rate of more than one 
million six hundred thousand miles every twenty-four hours. 

Where will infidelity, where will atheism find cause for this 
astonishing velocity of motion, never ceasing, never varying, and 
■which is the preservation of the earth in its orbit 1 It is not by 
reasoning from an acorn to an oak, or from any change in the state 
of matter on the surface of the earth, that this can be accounted 
for. Its cause is not to be found in matter, nor in any thing we 
cftll v nature. The atheist who affects to reason, and the fanatic 
who rejects reason, plunge themselves alike into^nextricable diffi- 
culties. The one perverts the sublime and enlightening study of 



DISCOURSE TO THE SOCIETY 



natural philosophy into a deformity of absurdities by not reasoning 
to the end. The other loses himself in the obscurity of metaphy- 
sical theories, and dishonours the Creator, by treating the study of 
his works with contempt. The one is a half-rational of whom 
there is some hope, the other a visionary to whom we must be 
charitable. 

When at first thought we think of a Creator, our ideas appear 
to us undefined and confused ; but if we reason philosophically, 
those ideas can be easily arranged and simplified. It is a Being 
whose 'power is equal to his will. Observe the nature of the will of 
man. It is of an infinite quality. W e cannot conceive the possi- 
bility of limits to the will. Observe on the other hand, how ex- 
ceedingly limited is his power of acting, compared with the nature 
of his will. Suppose the power equal to the will, and man would 
be a God. He would will himself eternal, and be so. He could 
will a creation, and could make it. In this progressive reasoning, 
we see in the nature of the will of man, half of that which we con- 
ceive of thinking of God; add the other half, and we have the 
whole idea of a being who could make the universe, and sustain it 
by perpetual motion ; because he could create that motion. 

We know nothing of the capacity of the will of animals, but we 
know a great deal of the difference of their powers. For example, 
how numerous are the degrees, and how immense is the difference 
of power from a mite to a man. Since then every thing we see 
below us shows a progression of power, where is the difficulty in 
supposing that there is, at the summit of all things, a Being in 
"whom an infinity of power unites with the infinity of the will. 
When this simple idea presents itself to our mind, we have the 
idea of a perfect Being that man calls God. 

It is comfortable to live under the belief of the existence of an 
infinitely protecting power ; and it is an addition to that comfort to 
know that such a belief is not a mere conceit of the imagination, 
as many of the theories that are called religious are ; nor a belief 
founded only on tradition or received opinion, but is a belief dedu- 
cible by the action of reason upon the things that compose the 
system of the universe : a belief arising out of visible facts : and 
so demonstrable is the truth of this belief, that if no such belief 
had existed, the persons who now controvert it, would have been 
the persons who would have produced and propagated it, because, 
by beginning to reason, they would have been led on to reason 



OP THEO PHIL ANTH ROPIS TSa 201 

progressively to the end, and, thereby, have discovered that matter 
and all the properties it has, will not account for the system of the 
universe, and that there must necessarily be a superior cause. 

It was the excess to which imaginary systems of religion had 
been carried, and the intolerance, persecutions, burnings, and 
massacres, they occasioned, that first induced certain persons to 
propagate infidelity ; thinking, that upon the whole it was better 
not to believe at all, than to believe a multitude of things and com- 
plicated creeds, that occasioned so much mischief in the world. 
But those days are past : persecution has ceased, and the antidote 
then set up against it has no longer even the shadow of an apology. 
We profess, and we proclaim in peace, the pure, unmixed, com- 
fortable, and rational belief of a God, as manifested to us in the 
universe. We do this without any apprehension of that belief be- 
ing made a cause of persecution as other beliefs have been, or of 
suffering persecution ourselves. To God, and not to man, are all 
men to account for their belief. 

It has been well observed at the first institution of this society, 
that the dogmas it professes to beiieve, are from the commence- 
ment of the world ; that they are not novelties, but are confessedly 
the basis of all systems of religion, however numerous and con- 
tradictory they may be. All men in the outset of the religion they 
profess are Theophilanthropists. It is impossible to form any 
system of religion without building upon those principles, and, 
therefore, they are not sectarian principles, unless we suppose a 
sect composed of all the world. 

I have said in the course of this discourse, that the study of na- 
tural philosophy is a divine study, because it is the study of the 
works of God in the Creation. If we consider theology upon this 
ground, what an extensive field of improvement in things both 
divine and human opens itself before us. All the principles of 
science are of divine origin. It was not man that invented the 
principles on which astronomy, and every branch of mathematics 
are founded and studied. It was not man that gave properties to 
the circle and triangle. Those principles are eternal and immu- 
table. We see in them the unchangeable nature of the Divinity. 
We see in them immortality, an immortality existing after the ma- 
terial figures that express those properties are dissolved in dust. 

The society is at present in its infancy, and its means are small ; 
but I wish to hold in view the subject I allude to, and instead of 

26 



262 DISCOURSE TO THE SOCIETY, &CV 

teaching the philosophical branches of learning as ornamental ate v 
complishments only, as they have hitherto been taught, to teacfo 
them in a manner that shall combine theological knowledge with 
scientific instruction ; to do this to the best advantage, some in- 
struments will be necessary for the purpose of explanation, of 
which the society is not yet possessed- Out as the views of the so- 
ciety extend to public good, as well as to that of the individual, and 
as its principles can have no enemies, means may be devised to 
procure the in. 

If we unite to the present instruction, a series of lectures on the 
ground I have mentioned, we shall, in the first place, render theo- 
logy the most delightful and entertaining of all studies. In the 
next place we shall give scientific instruction to those who could 
not otherwise obtain it. The mechanic of every profession will 
there be taught the mathematical principles necessary to render 
him a proficient in his art. The cultivator will there see develop- 
ed, the principles of vegetation : while, at the same time, they 
will be led to see the hand of God in all these things. 



LETTER TO CAMILLE JORDAN, 



ONE OF THE COUNCIL OP FIVE HUNDRED, 

OCCASIONED BY HIS REPORT ON THE PRIESTS. 
PUBLIC WORSHIP, AND THE BELLS. 

Citizen Representative, 

As every thing in your report, relating to what vou call worship, 
connects itself with the books called the Scriptures, I begin with 
a quotation therefrom. It may serve to give us some idea of the 
fanciful origin and fabrication of those books. 2 Chronicles, chap, 
xxxiv. ver. 14, &c. '* Hilkiah, the priest, found the book of the 
law of the Lord given by Moses. And Hilkiah, the priest, said 
to Shaphan, the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the 
house of the Lord, and Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan. 
And Shaphan, the scribe, told the king, (Josiah,) saying, Hilkiah, 
the priest, hath given me a book." 

This pretended finding was about a thousand years after the 
time that Moses is said to have lived. Before this pretended 
finding, there was no such thing practised or known in the world 
as that which is called the law of Moses. This beinor the case, 
there is every apparent evidence, that the books called the books of 
Moses (and which make the first part of what are railed the Scrip- 
tures) are forgeries contrived between a priest and a limb of the 
Jaw,* Hilkiah, and Shaphan. the scribe, a thousand years after 
Moses is said to have been dead. 

Thus much for the first part of the Bible. Every other part 
is marked with circumstances equally as suspicious. We ought, 

* It happens that Camille Jordan is a iimb of the law. 



204 LETTER TO C'AMILLE JORBA^. 

therefore, to be reverentially careful how we ascribe books as his 
word, of which there is no evidence, and against which there is 
abundant evidence to the contrary, and every cause to suspect 
imposition. 

In your report you speak continually of something by the name 
of worship, and you confute yourself to speak of one k;nd only, 
as if there were but one, and that one was unquestionably true. 

The modes of worship are as various as the sects are numer- 
ous ; and amidst all this variety and multiplicity there is but one 
article of belief in which every religion in the world agrees. That 
article has universal sanction. It is the belief of a God, or what 
the Greeks described by the word Theism, and the Latins by that 
of Deism. Upon this one article have been erected all the differ- 
ent super-structures of creeds and ceremonies continually warring 
with. each other that now exists or ever existed. But the men 
most and best informed upon the subject of theology, rest them- 
selves upon this universal article, and hold all the various super- 
structures erected thereon to be at least doubtful, if not altogether 
artificial. 

The intellectual part of religion is a private affair between every 
man and his Maker, and in which no third party has any right to 
interfere. The practical part consists in our doing good to each 
ether. But since religion has been made into a trade, the practi- 
cal part has been made to consist of ceremonies performed by 
men called priests ; and the people have been amused with cere- 
monial shows, processions, and bells.* By devices of this kind 
true religion has been banished ; and such means have been found 
out to extract money even from the pockets of the poor, instead 
of contributing to their relief. 

* The precise date of the invention of bells cannot be traced. The ancients, 
it appears from Martial, Juvenal, Suetonius and others, had an article named 
tintinuabula, (usually translated bell,) by which the Romans were summoned 
to their baths and public places. It seems most probable, that the description 
of bells now used in churches, were invented about the year 400, and generally 
adopted before the commencement of the seventh century. Previous to their 
invention, however, sounding brass, and sometimes basins, were used ; and to 
the present day the Greek church have boards, or iron plates, full of holes, 
which they strike with a hammer, or mallet, to summon the priests and others} 
to divine service. We may also remark, that in our own country, it was the 
custom in monasteries to visit every person's cell early in the morning, and 
knock on the door with a similar instrument,, called the wakening mallet — 
doubtless no very pleasing intrusion on the slumbers of the Monks. 

But, the use of bells having been established, it was found that devils were 
terrified at the sound, and slunk in haste away ; in consequence of which it 
was thought necessary to baptize them in a solemn manner, w r hich appears to 



LETTER TO CAMILLE JORDAN. 20# 

3So man ought to make a living by religion. It is dishonest 
So to do. Religion is not an act that can be performed by proxy. 
One person cannot act religion for another. Every person must 
perform it for himself : and all that a priest can do is to take from 
him, he wants nothing but his money, and then to riot in the spoil 
and laugh at his credulity. 

Th^ only people, as a professional sect of Christians, who pro- 
vide for the poor of their society, are people known by the name 
of Quakers. Those men have no priests. They assemble quietly 
in their places of meeting, and do not disturb their neighbours with 
shows and noise of bells. Religion does not unite itself to show 
and noise. True religion is without either. Where there is 
both there is no true religion. 

The first object for inquiry in all cases, more especially in mat- 
ters of religious concern, is TRUTH. We ought to inquire into 
the truth of whatever we are taught to believe, and it is certain 
that the books called the Scriptures stand, in this respect, in 
more than a doubtful predicament. They have been held in exis- 
tence, and in a sort of credit among the common class of people, 
by art, terror, and persecution. They have little or no credit 
among the enlightened part, but they have been made the means 



have been first done by Pope John XTI. A. D. 968. A record of this practice 
still exists in the Tom of Lincoln, and the great Tom at Oxford, &c. 

Having thus laid the foundation of superstitious veneration, in the hearts of 
the common people, it cannot be a matter of surprise, that they were soon used 
at rejoicings, and high festivals in the church (for the purpose of driving away 
any evil spirit which might be in the neighborhood) as well as on the arrival 
of any great personage, on which occasion the usual fee was one penny. 

One other custom remains to be explained, viz. tolling bell on the occasion of, 
any person's death, a custom which, in the manner now practised, is totally 
different from its original institution. It appears to have been used as early 
as the 7th century, when bells were first generally used and to have been de- 
nominated the soul bell, (as it signified the departing of the soul,) as also, the 
passing bell. Thus Wheatly tells us, " Our church, in imitation of the Saints 
of former ages, calls in the Minister and others who are at hand, to assist their 
brother in his last extremity ; in order to this, she directs a bell should be toll- 
ed when any one is passing out of this life." Durand also says — " Vv 7 hen any 
one is dxjing, bells must be tolled, that the people may put up their prayers for 
him ; let this be done twice for a woman, and thrice for a man. If* for a cler- 
gyman, as many times as he had orders ; and, at the conclusion, a peal on all 
the bells, to distinguish the quality of the person for whom the people are to 
put up their prayers." — From these passages, it appears evident that the bell 
was to be tolled before a person's decease rather than after, as at the present 
day ; and that the object was to obtain the prayers of all who heard it, for the 
repose of the soul of their departing neighbour. At first, when the tolling too]^ 
place after the person's decease, it was deemed superstitious, and was partially 
disused, which was found materially to affect the revenue of the church. 
The priesthood having removed the objection, bells were again tolled, upon ( 
payment of the customary fees. English Paper, 



206 



LETTER TO CAMILLE JORDAN. 



of encumbering the world with a numerous priesthood, who have 
fattened on the labour of the people, and consumed the sustenance 
that ought to be applied to the widows and the poor. 

It is a want of feeling to talk o * priests and bells whilst so many 
infants are peri-hing in the hospital , and aged and infirm poor in 
the streets, from the want of necessaries. The abundance that 
France produces is sufficient for every want, if rightly applied ; 
but priests and bells, like articles of luxury, ought to be the least 
articles of consideration. 

We talk of religion. Let us talk of truth ; for that which is not 
truth, is not worthy the na;xe o religion. 

We see different parts of the world overspread with different 
books, each of which, though contradictory to the other, is said by 
its partisans, to be of divine origin, and is made a rule of faith and 
practice. In countries under despotic governments, where in- 
quiry is always forbidden, the people are condemned to believe 
as they have been taught by their priests. This was for many 
centuries the case in France : but this link in the chain of slavery, 
is happily broken by the revolution ; and, that it may never be 
rivetted again, let us employ a part of the liberty we enjoy in scru- 
tinizing into the truth. Let us leave behind us some monument, 
that we have made the cause and honour of our Creator an object 
of our care. If we have been impose I upon by the terrors of 
government and the artifice of priests in matters of religion, let us 
do justice to our Creator by examining into the case. His name 
is too sacred to be affixed to any thing which is fabulous ; and it is 
our duty to inquire whether we believe, or encourage the people 
to believe, in fables or in facts. 

It would be a project worthy the situation we are in, to invite 
in inquiry of this kind. We have committees for various objects ; 
and. among others, a committee for bells. We have institutions, 
academies, and societies for various purposes ; but we have none 
for inquiring into historical truth in matters of religious concern. 

They show us certain books which they call the Holy Scrip- 
tures, the word of God, a id o her names of that kind ; but we 
ought to know what evidence there is for our believing them to be 
so, and at what time they originated and in what manner. We 
know that men could make books, and we know that artifice and 
superstition could give them a name ; could ^11 them sacred. 
But we ought to be careful that the name of our Creator be not 



lETTER TO CAMILLE JORDAN. 207 

abused. Let then all the evidence with respect to those books be 
made a subject of inquiry. If there be evidence to warrant our 
belief of them, let us encourage the propagation of it: but if 
not, let us be careful not to promote the cause of delusion 
and falsehood. 

I have already spoken of the Quakers — that they have no priests, 
no bells — and that they are remarkable for their care of the poor 
of their society. 'They arc equall) ■>■• remarkable for the educa- 
tion of their children. 1 am a descendant of a family of that pro- 
fession ; my father was a Quaker ; and I presume I may be 
admitted an evidence of what 1 assert. The seeds of good prin- 
ciples, and the literary means of advancement in the world, are 
laid in early life. Instead, therefore, of consuming the substance 
of the nation upon priests, whose life at best is a life of idleness r 
let us think of providing for the education of those who have not 
the means of doing it themselves. One goud schoolmaster is of 
more use than a hundred priests. 

If we look back at what was the condition of France under the 
ancient regime, we cannot acquit the priests of corrupting the mo- 
rals of the nation. Their pretended celibacy led them to carry de- 
bauchery and domestic infidelity into every family where they 
could gain admission ; and their blasphemous pretensions to for- 
give sins, encouraged the commission of them. Why has the 
Revolution of France been stained with crimes which the Revo- 
lution of the United States of America was not ? Men are physi- 
cally the same in all countries ; it is education that makes them 
different. Accustom a people to believe that priests, or any other 
class of men can forgive sins, and you will have sins in abundance, 
I come now to speak more particularly to the object of your 
report. 

You claim a privilege incompatible with the constitution and 
with rights. The constitution protects equally, as it ought to do, 
every profession of religion ; it gives no exclusive privilege to 
any. The churches are the common property of all the people ; 
they are national goods, and cannot be given exclusively to any 
one profession, because the right does not exist of giving to any 
one that which appertains to all. It would be consistent with 
right that the churches be sold, and the money arising therefrom 
be invested as a fund for the education of children of poor parents 
of every profession, and, if more than sufficient for this purpose. 



LETTER TO CAMLLIE JORDAN* 



that the surplus be appropriated to the support of the aged poof. 
After this, every profession can erect its own place of worship, if 
it choose — support its own priests, if it choose to have any — or 
perform its worship without priests, as the Quakers do. 

As to bells, they are a public nuisance. If one profession is 
to have bells, and another has the right to use the instruments of 
the sa-ne kind, or any other noisy instrument. Some may choose 
to meet at the sound of cannon, another at the beat of drum, 
another at the sound of trumpets, and so on, until the whole be- 
comes a scene of general confusion. But if we permit ourselves 
to think of the state of the sick, and the many sleepless nights 
and days they undergo, we shall feel the impropriety of increasing 
their distress by the noise of bells, or any other noisy instruments. 

Quiet and private domestic devotion neither offends nor incom- 
modes any body ; and the constitution has wisely guarded against 
the use of externals. Bells come under this description, and 
public processions still more so — Streets and highways are for the 
accommodation of persons following their several occupations, 
and no sectary has a right to incommode them — If any one has, 
every other has the same ; and the meeting of various and con- 
traditory processions would be tumultuous. Those who formed 
the constitution had wisely reflected upon these cases ; and, 
whilst they were careful to reserve the equal right of every one, 
they restrained every one from giving offence, or incommoding 
another. 

Men who, through a long and tumultuous scene, have lived in 
retirement as you have done, may think, when they arrive at 
power, that nothing is more easy than to put the world to rights in 
an instant ; they form to themselves gay ideas at the success of 
their projects ; but they forget to contemplate the difficulties that 
attend them, and the dangers with which they are pregnant. 
Alas ! nothing is so easy as to deceive one's self. Did all men 
think, as you think, or as you say, your plan would need no ad- 
vocate, because it would have no opposer ; but there are millions 
who think differently to you, and who are determined to be neither 
the dupes nor the slaves of error or design. 

It is your good fortune to arrive at power, when the sunshine of 
prosperity is breathing forth after a long and stormy night. The 
firmness of your colleagues, and of those you have succeeded — 
the unabated energy of the Directory, and the unequalled bravery 



LETTER TO CAMILLE JORDAN. 



209 



m the armies of the Republic, have made the way smooth and 
easy to you. If you look back at the difficulties that existed 
when the constitution commenced, you cannot but be confounded 
with admiration at the difference between that time and now. At 
4hat moment the Directory were placed like the forlorn hope of an 
army, but you were in safe retirement. They occupied the post 
of honourable danger, and they have merited well of their country. 

You talk of justice and benevolence, but you begin at the 
wrong; end. The defenders of your country, and the deplorable 
state of the poor, are objects of prior consideration to priests 
and bells and gaudy processions. 

You talk of peace, but your manner of talking of it embarrasses 
the Directory in making it, and serves to prevent it. Had you 
been an actor in all the scenes of government from its commence- 
ment, you would have been too well informed to have brought for- 
ward projects that operate to encourage the enemy. When you 
arrived at a share in the government, you found every thincr tend- 
ing to a prosperous issue. A series of victories unequalled in the 
world, and in the obtaining of which you had no share, preceded 
your arrival. Every enemy but one was subdued ; and that one, 
(the Hanoverian government of England,) deprived of every 
hope, and a bankrupt in all its resources, was sueing for peace. 
In such a state of things, no new question that might tend to agi- 
tate and anarchize the interior, ought to have had place ; and the 
project you propose, tends directly to that end. 

Whilst France was a monarchy, and under the government of 
those things called kings and priests, England could always defeat 
her; but since France has RISEN TO BE A REPUBLIC, 
the Government of England crouches beneath her, so great 
is the difference between a government of kings and priests, and 
that which is founded on the system of representation. * But, 
could the government of England find a way, under the sanction 
of your report, to inundate France with a flood of emigrant priests, 
she would find also the way to domineer as before ; she would re- 
trieve her shattered finances at your expence s and the ringing of 
bells would be the tocsin of your downfall. 

Did peace consist in nothing but the cessation of war, it would 
not be difficult ; but the terms are yet to be arranged ; and those 
terms will be better or worse, in proportion as France and her 
councils be united or divided. That the government of England. 

27 



21© 



LETTER TO CAMILLE JORDAN. 



counts much upon your report, and upon others of a similar ten- 
dency, is what the writer of this letter, who knows that govern- 
ment well, has no doubt. You are but new on the theatre of go- 
vernment, and you ought to suspect yourself of misjudging ; the 
experience of those who have gone before you, should be of some 
service to you. 

But if, in consequence of such measures as you propose, you 
put it out of the power of the Directory to make a good peace, 
and to accept of terms you would afterwards reprobate, it is your- 
selves that roust bear the censure. 

You conclude your report by the following address to your coh 
leagues : — 

" Let us hasten, representatives of the people ! to affix to these 
tutelary laws the seal of our unanimous approbation. All our fel- 
low-citizens will learn to cherish political liberty from the enjoy- 
ment of religious liberty : you will have broken the most power- 
ful arm of your enemies ; you will have surrounded this assembly 
with the most impregnant rampart — -confidence, and the people's 
love. ! my colleagues ! how desirable is that popularity which 
is the offspring of good laws! What a consolation it will be to us 
hereafter, when returned to our own fire-sides, to hear from the 
mouths of our fellow-citizens, these simple expressions — Bles- 
sings reward you, men of peace ! you have restored to us our tem- 
ples — our ministers — the liberty of adoring the God of our fa- 
thers : you have recalled harmony to our families — morality to our 
hearts : you have made us adore the legislature and respect aU 
its laws /" 

Is it possible, citizen representative, that you can be serious in 
this address ? Were the lives of the priests under the ancient re- 
gime such as to justify any thing you say of them 1 Where not all 
France convinced of their immorality ? Were they not considered 
as the patrons of debauchery and domestic infidelity, and not as 
the patrons of morals 1 What was their pretended celibacy but 
perpetual adultery? What was their blasphemous pretentions to 
forgive sins, but an encouragement to the commission of them, 
and a love for their own 1 Do you want to lead again into France 
all the vices of which they have been the patrons, and to over- 
spread the republic with English pensioners ! It is cheaper to cor- 
rupt, than to conquer ; and the English government, unable U,\ 



LETTER TO CAMiLLE JORDAN. <211 

conquer ; will stoop to corrupt. Arrogance and meanness, though 
in appearance opposite, are vices of the same heart. 

Instead of concluding in the manner you have done, you ought 
rather to have said, 

" ! my colleagues ! we are arrived at a glorious period — a 
period that promises more than we could have expected, and all 
that we could have wished. Let us hasten to take into consider- 
ation the honours and rewards due to our brave defenders. Let 
us hasten to give encouragement to agriculture and manufactures, 
that commerce may reinstate itself, and our people have employ- 
ment. Let us review the condition of the suffering poor, and 
wipe from our country the reproach of forgetting them. Let us 
devise means to establish schools of instruction, that we may- 
banish the ignorance that the ancient regime of kings and priests 
had spread among the people. — Let us propagate morality, un- 
fettered by superstition — Let us cultivate justice and benevo- 
lence, that the God of our fathers may bless us. The helpless 
infant and the aged poor cry to us to remember them — Let not 
wretchedness be seen in our streets — Let France exhibit to the 
world the glorious example of expelling ignorance and misery 
together. 

" Let these, my virtuous colleagues, be the subject of our care 4 
that, when we return among our fellow-citizens, they may say, 
Worthy representatives ! you have done ivell. You have done jus- 
tice and honour to our brave defenders. You have encouraged 
agriculture — cherished our decayed- manufactures — given new life 
to commerce, and employment to our people. You have removed 
from our country the reproach of forgetting the poor — You have 
caused the cry of the orphan to cease — You have wiped the tear 
from the eye of the suffering mother — You have given comfort to 
the aged and infirm — You have penetrated into the gloomy recesses 
of wretchedness, and have banished it. Welcome among us, ye 
brave and virtuous representatives ! and may your example be 
followed by your successors /" 

THOMAS PAINE. 

Pans, 1797. 



AN 

EXAMINATION 

OK THE 

PASSAGES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, 
aUOTED FROM THE OLD, 

AND CALLED 

PROPHECIES CONCERNING JESUS CHRIST. 



TO WHICH IS PREFIXED 

AN ESSAY ON DREAM, 

ALSO, 
CONTAINING THE 

CONTRADICTORY DOCTRINES BETWEEN MATTHEW AND MARK; 

AI»D MY 

PRIVATE THOUGHTS ON A FUTURE STATE. 



rREFACE. 



TO THE MINISTERS AND PREACHERS OF ALL DENOMINATIONS 
OF RELIGION. 

• 

It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to de- 
tect and expose delusion and error. But nature has not given to 
every one a talent for the purpose ; and among those to whom 
such a talent is given, there is often a want of disposition or of 
courage to do it. 

The world, or more properly speaking, that small part of it 
called Christendom, or the Christian World, has been amused for 
more than a thousand years with accounts of Prophecies in the 
Old Testament, about the coming of the person called Jesus Christ, 
and thousands of sermons have been preached, and volumes writ- 
ten, to make man believe it. 

In the following treatise I have examined all the passages in 
the New Testament, quoted from the Old, and called prophecies 
concerning Jesus Christ, and I find no such thing as a prophecy of 
any such person, and I deny there are any. The passages all re- 
late to circumstances the Jewish nation was in at the time they 
were written or spoken, and not to any thing that was or was not 
to happen in the world several hundred years afterwards ; and I 
have shown what the circumstances were, to which the passages 
apply or refer. I have given chapter and verse for every thing I 
have said, and have not gone out of the books of the Old and New 
Testament for evidence that the passages are not prophecies of the 
person called Jesus Christ. 



) 



PREFACE. 



The prejudice of unfounded belief, often degenerates into the 
prejudice of custom, and becomes, at last, rank hypoprisy. When 
men, from custom or fashion, or any worldly motive, profess or 
pretend to believe what they do not believe, nor can give any rea«? 
son for believing, they unship the helm of their morality, and being 
no longer honest to their own minds, they feel no moral difficulty 
in being unjust to others. It is from the influence of this vice, 
hypocrisy, that we see so many Church and Meeting-going pro- 
fessors and pretenders to religion, so full of trick and deceit in 
their dealings, and so loose in the performance of their engage- 
ments, that they are not to be trusted further than the laws of the 
country will bind them. Morality has no hold on their minds, no 
restraint on their actions. 

One set of preachers make salvation to consist in believing* 
They tell their congregations, that if they believe in Christ, their 
sins shall be forgiven. This, in the first place, is an encourage- 
ment to sin, in a similar manner as when a prodigal young fellow 
is told his father will pay all his debts, he runs into debt the faster, 
and becomes the more extravagant : Daddy, says he, pays all, and 
on he goes. Just so in the other case, Christ pays all, and on 
goes the sinner. 

In the next place, the doctrine these men preach is not true. 
The New Testament rests itself for credulity and testimony on 
what are called prophecies in the Old Testament, of the person 
called Jesus Christ ; and if there are no such thing as prophecies 
of any such person in the Old Testament, the New Testament is 
a forgery of the councils of Nice and Laodocia, and the faith 
founded thereon, delusion and falsehood.* 

Another set of preachers tell their congregations that God pre- 
destinated and selected from all eternity, a certain number to be 
saved, and a certain number to be damned eternally. If this were 
true, the day of Judgment is past: their preaching is in vain, 
and they had better work at some useful calling for their liveli- 
hood. 

This doctrine, also, like the former, hath a direct tendency to 
demoralize mankind. Can a bad man be reformed by telling him, 

* The councils of Nice and Laodocia were held about 350 years after the 
time Christ is said to have lived ; and the books that now compose the New 
Testament, were then voted for by yeas and nays, as we now vote a law. A 
great many that were offered had a majority of nays, and were rejected. This 
$s the way the New Testament came into being. 



PREFACE 



that if he is one of those who was decreed to be damned before he 
was born, his reformation will do him no good ; and if he was de- 
creed to be saved, he will be saved whether he believes it or not ; 
for this is the result of the doctrine. Such preaching, and such 
preachers, do injury to the moral world. They had better be at 
the plough. 

As in my political works my motive and object have been to 
give man an elevated sense of his own character, and free him 
from the slavish and superstitious absurdity of monarchy and 
hereditary government, so in my publications on religious subjects 
my endeavours have been directed to bring man to a right use of 
the reason that God has given him ; to impress on him the great 
principles of divine morality, justice, mercy, and a benevolent 
disposition to all men, and to all creatures, and to inspire in him a 
spirit of trust, confidence and consolation in his Creator, unshack- 
led by the fables of books pretending to be the vjord of God. 

THOMAS PAINE* 




28 



i 



AN ESSAY ON DREAMS. 



As a great deal is said in the New Testament about dreams, it 
is first necessary to explain the nature of dream, and to show by 
what operation of the mind a dream is produced during sleep. 
When this is understood we shall be the better enabled to judge 
whether any reliance can be placed upon them ; and, consequently, 
whether the several matters in the New Testament related of 
dreams deserve the credit which the writers of that book and 
priests and commentators ascribe to them. 

In order to understand the nature of dreams, or of that which 
passes in ideal vision during a state of sleep, it is first necessary 
to understand the composition and decomposition of the human 
mind. 

The three great faculties of the mind are imagination, judge- 
ment and memory. Every action of the mind comes under one 
or the other of these faculties. In a state of wakefulness, as in the 
day-time, these three faculties are all active ; but that is seldom 
the case in sleep, and never perfectly : and this is the cause that 
our dreams are not so regular and rational as our waking thoughts. 

The seat of that collection of powers or faculties, that consti- 
tute what is called the mind, is in the brain. There is not, and 
cannot be, any visible demonstration of this anatomically, but ac- 
cidents happening to living persons, show it to be so. An injury 
done to the brain by a fracture of the skull, will sometimes change 
a wise man into a childish idiot : a being without mind. But so 
careful has nature been of that sanctum sanctorum of man, the 
brain, that of all the external accidents to which humanity is sub- 
ject, this happens the most seldom. But we often see it happen 
jng by long and habitual intemperance. 



^20 A5f ESSAY ON BREAjtf. 

Whether those three faculties occupy distinct apartments of the 
brain, is known only to that Almighty power that formed and 
organized it. We can see the external effects of muscular motion 
in all the members of the body, though its priraum mobile, or first 
moving cause, is unknown to man. Our external motions are 
sometimes the effect of intention, and sometimes not. If we are 
sitting and intend to rise, or standing and intend to set, or to walk, 
the limbs ob^y that intention as if they heard the order given. But 
we make a thousand motions every day, and that as well waking 
as sleeping, that have no prior intention to direct them. Each 
member acts as if it had a will or mind of its own. Man governs 
the whole when he pleases to govern, but in the interims the sev= 
eral parts, like little suburbs, govern themselves without consulting 
the sovereign. 

But all these motions, whatever be the generating cause, are 
external and visible. But with respect to the brain, no ocular 
observation can be made upon it. All is mystery ; all is darkness 
in that womb of thought. 

Whether the brain is a mass of matter in continual rest ; whether 
it has a vibrating pulsative motion, or a heaving and falling mo- 
tion, like matter in fermentation ; whether different parts of the 
brain have different motions according to the faculty that is em- 
ployed, be it the imagination, the judgment, or the memory, man 
knows nothing of it. He knows not the cause of his own wit. His 
own brain conceals it from him. 

Comparing invisible by visible things, as metaphysical caa 
sometimes be compared to physical things, the operations of those 
distinct and several faculties have some resemblance to the me- 
chanism of a watch. The main spring which puts all in motion, 
corresponds to the imagination ; the pendulum or balance, which, 
corrects and regulates that motion, corresponds to the judgment ; 
and the hand and dial, like the memory, record the operations. 

Now in proportion as these several faculties sleep, slumber, 01 
keep awake, during the continuance of a dream, in that proportion 
the dream will be reasonable or frantic, remembered or forgotten. 

If there is any faculty in mental man that never sleeps, it is that 
volatile thing the imagination : the case is different with the judg- 
ment and memory. The sedate and sober constitution of the 
judgment easily disposes it to rest ; and as to the memory, it 
records in silence, and is active only when it is called upon. 



AN ESSAY ON DREAM. 2,2$ 

That the judgment soon goes to sleep may be perceived by our 
sometimes beginning to dream before we are fully asleep our- 
selves. Some random thought runs in the mind, and we start, as 
it were, into recollection that we are dreaming between sleeping 
and waking. 

If the judgment sleeps whilst the imagination keeps awake, the 
dream will be a riotous assemblage of mis-shapen images and ran- 
ting ideas, and the more active the imagination is, the wilder the 
dream will be. The most inconsistent and the most impossible 
things will appear right ; because that faculty, whose province it 
is to keep order, is in a state of absence. The master of the 
school is gone out, and the boys are in an uproar. 

If the memory sleeps, we shall have no other knowledge of the 
dream than that we have dreamt, without knowing what it was 
about. In this case it is sensation, rather than recollection, that 
acts. The dream has given us some sense of pain or trouble, and 
we feel it as a hurt, rather than remember it as a vision. 

If memory only slumbers, we shall have a faint remembrance 
of the dream, and after a few minutes it will sometimes happen 
that the principal passages of the dream will occur to us more 
fully. The cause of this is, that the memory will sometimes con- 
tinue slumbering or sleeping after we are awake ourselves, and 
that so fully, that it may, and sometimes does happen, that we do 
not immediately recollect where we are, nor what we have been 
about, or have to do. But when the memory starts into wakeful- 
ness, it brings the knowledge of these things back upon us, like a 
flood of light, and sometimes the dream with it. 

But the most curious circumstance of the mind in a state of 
dream, is the power it has to become the agent of every person, 
character and thing, of which it dreams. It carries on conversa- 
tion with several, asks questions, hears answers, gives and receives 
information, and it acts all these parts itself. 

But however various and eccentric the imagination may be in the 
creation of images and ideas, it cannot supply the place of memo- 
ry, with respect to things that are forgotten when we are awake. 
For example, if we have forgotten the name of a person, and dream 
of seeing him and asking him his name, he cannot tell it ; for it is 
ourselves asking ourselves the question. 

But though the imagination cannot supply the place of real 
memory, it has the wild faculty of counterfeiting memory. It 



I 



AN ESSAY ON DREAM. 

dreams of persons it never knew, and talks with them as if it re- 
membered them as old acquaintances. It relates circumstances 
that never happened, and tells them as if they had happened. It 
goes to places that never existed, and knows where all the streets 
and houses are, as if it had been there before. The scenes it cre- 
ates often appear as scenes remembered. It will sometimes act 
a dream within a dream, and, in the delusion of dreaming, tell a 
dream it never dreamed, and tell it as if it was from memory. It 
may also be remarked, that the imagination in a dream, has no idea 
of time, as time. It counts only by circumstances ; and if a suc- 
cession of circumstances pass in a dream that would require a 
great length of time to accomplish them, it will appear to tho 
dreamer that a length of time equal thereto has passed also. 

As this is the state of the mind in dream, it may rationally be 
said that every person is mad once in twenty-four hours, for were 
he to act in the day as he dreams in the night, he would be con- 
fined for a lunatic. In a state of wakefulness, those three facul- 
ties being all alive, and acting in union, constitute the rational 
man. In dreams it is otherwise, and, therefore, that state which is 
called insanity, appears to be no other than a disunion of those 
faculties, and a cessation of the judgment during wakefulness, that 
we so often experience during sleep ; and idiocity, into which 
some persons have fallen, is that cessation of all the faculties of 
which we can be sensible when we happen to wake before our 
memory. 

In this view of the mind, how absurd is it to place reliance upon 
dreams, and how much more absurd to make them a foundation 
for religion ; yet the belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, 
begotten by the Holy Ghost, a being never heard of before, stands 
on the story of an old man's dream. " And behold the angel of 
the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son 
of David, fear not thou to take unto thee Mary thy ivife, for that 
hich is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." — Matt. chap. i. 
verse 20. 

After this we have the childish stories of three or four other 
dreams 1 about Joseph going into Egypt ; about his coming back 
again ; about this, and about that, and this story of dreams has 
thrown Europe into a dream for more than a thousand years. All 
the efforts that nature, reason, and conscience have made to awak- 
en man from it, have been ascribed by priestcraft and superstition 



Hi ESSAY ON DREAM. 



to the workings of the devil, and had it not been for the American 
revolution, which, by establishing the universal right of conscience, 
first opened the way to free discussion, and for the French revo- 
lution which followed, this religion of dreams had continued to be 
preached, and that after it had ceased to be believed. Those who 
preached it and did not believe it, still believed the delusion neces- 
sary. They were not bold enough to be honest, nor honest enough 
to be bold. 9 

[Every new religion, like a new play, requires a new apparatus 
of dresses and machinery, to fit the new characters it creates. 
The story of Christ in the New Testament brings a new being 
Upon the stage, which it calls the Holy Ghost ; and the story of 
Abraham, the father of the Jews, in the Old Testament, gives ex- 
istence to a new order of beings it calls Angels. — There was no 
Holy Ghost before the time of Christ, nor Angels before the time 
of Abraham. — We hear nothing of these winged gentlemen, till 
more than two thousand years, according to the Bible chronology, 
from the time they say the heavens, the earth, and all therein were 
made : — After this, they hop about as thick as birds in a grove : — 
The first we hear of, pays his addresses to Hagar in the wilder- 
ness ; then three of them visit Sarah ; another wrestles a fall with 
Jacob ; and these birds of passage having found their way to 
earth and back, are continually coming and going. They eat and 
drink, and up again to heaven. — What they do with the food they 
carry away, the Bible does not tell us. — Perhaps they do as the 
birds do. * * * 

One would think that a system loaded with such gross and vul- 
gar absurdities as scripture religion is, could never have obtained 
credit ; yet we have seen what priestcraft and fanaticism could do ? 
and credulity believe. 

From angels in the old Testament we get to prophets, to 
witches, to seers of visions, and dreamers of dreams, and some- 
times we are told, as in 2 Sam. chap. ix. ver. 15, that God whis- 
pers in the ear — At other times we are not told how the impulse 
■was given, or whether sleeping or waking — In 2 Sam. chap. xxiv. 
ver. 1, it is said, " And again the anger of the Lord was kindled 
against Israel, and he moved David against them to say go number 
Israel and Judah." — And in 1 Chro. chap. xxi. ver. 1, when the 
same story is again related, it is said, " and Satan stood up 
against Israel, and moved David to number Israel," 



AN ESSAY ON DREAMj 



Whether this was done sleeping or waking, we are riot told, but 
it seems that David, whom they call " a man after God's own 
heart," did not know by what spirit he was moved ; and as to the 
men called inspired penmen, they agree so well about the matter* 
that in one book they say that it was God, and in the other that it 
Was the Devil. 

The idea that writers of the Old Testament had of a God waa 
boisterous, contemptible, and vulgar. — They make him the Mara 
of the Jews, the fighting God of Israel, the conjuring God of their 
Priests and Prophets. — They tell as many fables of him as the 
Greeks told of Hercules. * * * * 

They make their God to say exultingly, tl / will get me honour 
upon Pharoah and upon his Host, upon his Chariots and upon his 
Hoi*semen." — And that he may keep his word, they make him set 
a trap in the Red Sea, in the dead of the night, for Pharoah, his 
host, and his horses, and drown them as a rat-catcher would do 
so many rats — Great honour indeed ! the story of Jack the giant- 
killer is better told ! 

They pit him against the Egyptian magicians to conjure with 
him, the three first essays are a dead match — Each party turns 
his rod into a serpent, the rivers into blood, and creates frogs ; 
but upon the fourth, the God of the Israelites obtains the laurel, 
he covers them all over with lice ! — The Egyptian magicians can- 
not do the same, and this lousy triumph proclaims the victory ! 

They make their God to rain fire and brimstone upon Sodom 
and Gomorrah, and belch fire and smoke upon mount Sinai, as if 
he was the Pluto of the lower regions. They make him salt up 
Lot's wife like pickled pork ; they make him pass like Shak- 
speare's Queen Mab into the brain of their priests, prophets, and 
prophetesses, and tickle them into dreams, and after making him 
play all kind of tricks they confound him with Satan, and leave 
us at a loss to know what God they meant ! 

This is the descriptive God of the Old Testament ; and as to 
the New, though the authors of it have varied the scene, they have 
continued the vulgarity. 

Is man ever to be the dupe of priestcraft, the slave of supersti- 
tion 1 Is he never to have just ideas of his Creator 1 Is it better 
not to belief there is a God, than to believe of him falsely. When 
we behold the mighty universe that surrounds us, and dart our con- 
templation into the eternity of space, filled with innumerable orbs-, 



AN ESSAY ON DREAM. 



225 



revolving in eternal harmony, how paltry must the tales of the 
Old and New Testaments, prophancly called the word of God, 
appear to thoughtful man ! The stupendous wisdom and unerring 
order, that rei.irn and govern throughout this wondrous whole, and 
call us to reflection, put to shame (he Bible ! — The God of eterni- 
ty and of all that is real, is not the God of passing dreams, and 
shadows of man's imagination ! The God of truth is not the God 
of fable; the belief of a God begotten and a God crucitied, is a 

God blasphemed It is making a profane use of reason.]* 

I shall conclude this Essay on Dream with the two first verses 
of the 34th chapter of Ecclesiasticus, one of the books of the 
Aprocrypha. 

u The hopes of a man void of understanding are vain and false; 
and dreams lift up fools — Wh^fo regardcih dreams is like him 
that catcheth at a shadow, and foiloweth after the ivind." 

I now proceed to an examination of the passages in the Bible, 
called prophecies of the coming of Christ, and to show there are 
no prophecies of any such person. That the passages clandes- 
tinely styled prophecies are not prophecies, and that they refer to 
circumstances the Jewish nation was in at the time they were 
written or spoken, and not to any distance of future time or 
person. 

* Mr. Paine must have been in an ill humour when he wrote the passage 
inclosed in crotchets, commencing at page 223: and probably on reviewing it, 
and discovering exceptionable clauses, was induced to reject the whole, as it 
does not appear in the edit ion published by himself. But having obtained the 
original in the hand writing of Mr. P. and deeming some of the remarks wor- 
thy of being preserved, I have thought proper to restore the passage, with the 
exception of the objectional parts. — Editor. 



'>9 



AN 

EXAMINATION 

OF THE 

PASSAGES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, 

QUOTED FROM THE OLD, AND CALLED PROPHECIES OF THE COMING OP 

JESUS CHRIST. 

[This work was first published by Mr. Paine, at New- York, 
in 1807, and was the last of his writings edited by himself. It is 
evidently extracted from his answer to the bishop of LlandafT, or 
from his third part of the Age of Reason, both of which it appears 
by his will, he left in manuscript. The term, 11 The Bishop," 
occurs in this examination six times without designating what 
bishop is meant. Of all the replies to his second part of the Age 
of Reason, that of bishop Watson was the only one to which he 
paid particular attention ; and he is, no doubt, the person here 
alluded to. Bishop Watson's apology for the Bible had been 
published some years before Mr. P. left France, and the latter 
composed his answer to it, and also his third part of the Age of 
Reason, while in that country. 

When Mr. Paine arrived in America, and found that liberal 
opinions on religion were in disrepute, through the influence of 
hypocrisy and superstition, he declined publishing the entire of the 
works which he had prepared ; observing that '* An author might 
lose the credit he had acquired by writing too much." He how- 
ever gave to the public the examination before us, in a pamphlet 
form. But the apathy which appeared to prevail at that time in 
regard to religious inquiry, fully determined him to discontinue 
the publication of his theological writings. In this case, taking 
only a portion of one of the works before mentioned, he chose & 
title adapted to the particular part selected.] 



225 



EXAMINATION OF 



The passages called Prophecies of, or concerning, Jesus Christ, 
in the Old Testament, may be classed under the two following 
heads : — 

First those referred to in the four books of the New Testa- 
ment, called the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and 
John. 

Secondly, those which translators and commentators have, of 
their own imagination, erected into prophecies, and dubbed with 
that title at the head of the several chapters of the Old Testament. 
Of these it is scarcely worth while to waste time, ink, and paper 
upon ; I shall, therefore, confine myself chiefly to those referred 
to in the aforesaid four books of the New Testament, If I show 
that these are not prophecies of the person called Jesus Christ, 
nor have reference to any such person, it will be perfectly need- 
less to combat those which translators, or the Church, have 
invented, and for which they had no other authority than their 
own imagination. 

I begin with the book called the Gospel according to St, 
Matthew. 

In the first chap. ver. 18, it is said, " JYow the birth of Jesus 
Christ was in this wise ; when his mother JWary was espoused to 
Joseph, before they came together she was found with child 
by the holy ghost." — -This is going a little too fast ; because 
to make this verse agree with the next it should have said no more 
than that she was found with child ; for the next verse says, 
14 Then Joseph her husband being a just man, and not willing to 
make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily" 
—Consequently Joseph had found out no more than that she was 
with child, and he knew it was not by himself. 

Y. 20. " And while he thought of these things, (that is whether 
lie should put her away privily, or make a public example of her,) 
behold the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream (that 
is, Joseph dreamed that an angel appeared unto him) saying, 
Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee JVIary thy 
wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And 
she shall bring forth a son and call his name Jesus ; for he shall 
save his people from their sins." 

Now, without entering into any discussion upon the JfyfmS or 
demerits of the account here given, it is proper to obserte, that 
jjt has no higher authority than that of a "dream ; for it is 



THE PROPHECIES 



229 



impossible for a man to behold any thing in a dream, but that 
which he dreams of. I ask not, therefore, whether Joseph (if 
there was such a man) had such a dream or not ; because admit- 
ting he had, it proves nothing. So wonderful and rational is the 
faculty of the mind in dreams, that it acts the part of all the cha- 
racters its imagination creates, and what it thinks it hears from 
any of them, is no other than what the roving rapidity of its own 
imagination invents. It is, therefore, nothing to me what Joseph 
dreamed of; whether of the fidelity or infidelity of his wife. — I 
pay no regard to my own dreams, and I should be weak indeed to 
put faith in the dreams of another. 

The verses that follow those I have quoted, are the words of 
the writer of the book of Matthew. " JVow, (says he,) all this 
(that is, all this dreaming and this pregnancy) was done that it 
might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the Prophet, 
saying, 

" Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a 
son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being in- 
terpreted, is, God with us." 

This passage is in Isaiah, chap. vii. ver. 14, and the writer of 
the book of Matthew endeavours to make his readers believe that 
this passage is a prophecy of the person called Jesus Christ. It 
is no such thing — and I go to show it is not. But it is first ne- 
cessary that I explain the occasion of these w 7 ords being spoken 
by Isaiah ; the reader will then easily perceive, that so far from 
their being a prophecy of Jesus Christ, they have not the least 
reference to such a person, or any thing that could happen in the 
time that Christ is said to have lived which was about seven 
hundred years after the time of Isaiah. The case is this ; 

On the death of Solomon the Jewish nation split into two mon- 
archies : one called the kingdom of Judah, the capital of which 
was Jerusalem : the other the kingdom of Israel, the capital of 
which was Samaria. The kingdom of Judah followed the line of 
David, and the kingdom of Israel that of Saul ; and these two 
rival monarchies frequently carried on fierce wars against each 
other. 

At the time Ahaz was king of Judah, which was in the time of 
Isaiah, Pekah was king of Israel ; and Pekah joined himself to 
Rezin, king of Syria, to make war against Ahaz, king of Judah ; 
and these two kings marched a confederated and powerful army 



EXAMINATION OF 



against Jerusalem. Ahaz and his people became alarmed at the 
danger, and " their hearts were moved as the trees of the wood are 
moved with the wind." Isaiah, chap. vii. ver. 3, 

In this perilous situation of things, Isaiah addressed himself to 
Ahaz, and assures him, in the name of the Lord, (the cant phrase 
of all the prophets) that these two kings should not succeed 
against him ; and, to assure him that this should be the case, (the 
case was however directly contrary*) tells Ahaz to ask a sign of 
the Lord. This Ahaz declined doing, giving as a reason, that he 
would not tempt the Lord ; upon which Isaiah who pretends to 
be sent from God, says, ver. 14, " Therefore the Lord himself 
shall give you a sign, behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a 
son — Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse 
the evil and choose the good — For before the child shall know to 
refuse the evil and choose the good, the land which thou abhorrest 
shall be forsaken of both her kings" — meaning the king of Israel 
and the king of Syria, who were marching against him. 

Here then is the sign, which was to be the birth of a child, and 
that child a son ; and here also is the time limited for the accom- 
plishment of the sign, namely, before the child should know to re- 
fuse the evil and choose the good. 

The thing, therefore, to be a sign of success to Ahaz, must be 
something that would take place before the event of the battle 
then pending between him and the two kings could be known. A 
thing to be a sign must precede the thing signified. The sign of 
rain must be before the rain. 

It would have been mockery and insulting nonsense for Isaiah 
to have assured Ahaz as a sign, that these two kings should not 
prevail against him : that a child should be born seven hundred 
years after he was dead ; and that before the child so born should 
know to refuse the evil and choose the good, he, Ahaz, should 
be delivered from the danger he was then immediately threatened 
with. 

* Chron. cliap. xxviii. ver. 1st. Ahas was twenty years old when he began 
to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem, but he did not that which xoas 
right in the sight of the Lord. — ver. 5. Wherefore the Lord his God delivered 
Mm into the hand of the king of Syria, and they smote him, and carried away 
a, great multitude of them captive and brought them to Damascus ; and he ivas 
also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who smote him with a great 
daughter. 

Ver. 6. And Pekah (king of Israel) slew in Judah an hundred and tiventy 
thousand in one day. — ver. 8. And the children of Israel carried away captive of 
t&eAr brethren two hundred thousand women, sons, and daughters. 



THE PROPHECIES. 



231 



But the case is, that the child of which Isaiah speaks was his 
own child, with which his wife or his mistress was then pregnant ; 
for he says in the next chapter, v. 2, " And I took unto me faithful 
witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of 
Jeberechiah ; and 1 went unto the prophetess, and she conceived and 
bear a son ;" and he says, at ver. 18 of the same chapter, " Be- 
hold I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for 
signs and for wonders in Israel." 

It may not be improper here to observe, that the word trans- 
lated a virgin in Isaiah, does not signify a virgin in Hebrew, but 
merely a young woman. The tense also is falsified in the trans- 
lation* Levi gives the Hebrew text of the 14th ver. of the 7th 
chap, of Isaiah, and the translation in English with it — " Behold 
a young woman is with child and beareth a son." The expres- 
sion, says he, is in the present tense. This translation agrees with 
the other circumstances related of the birth of this child, which 
was to be a sign to Ahaz. But as the true translation could not 
have been imposed upon the world as a prophecy of a child to be 
born seven hundred years afterwards, the Christian translators 
have falsified the original : and instead of making Isaiah to say, 
behold a young woman is with child and beareth a son — they make 
him to say, behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son. It is, 
however, only necessary for a person to read the 7th and 8th chap- 
ters of Isaiah, and he will be convinced that the passage in ques- 
tion is no prophecy of the person called Jesus Christ. I pass on 
to the second passage quoted from the Old Testament by the New, 
as a prophecy of Jesus Christ. 

Matthew, chap. ii. ver. 1. " Now when Jesus was born in 
Bethlehem of Judah, in the days of Herod the king, behold there 
came wise men from the east to Jerusalem — saying, where is he 
that is born king of the Jews ? for we have seen his star in the 
east, and are come to worship him. When Herod, the king, 
heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him 
— and when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of 
the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be 
born — and they said unto him in Bethlehem, in the land of Ju- 
dea : for thus it is written by the prophet — and thou Bethlehem? 
in the land of Judea, art not the least among the Princes of Judea* 
for out of thee shall come a Governor that shall rule my people 
Israel." This passage is in Micah, chap. 5. ver. 2, 



232 



EXAMINATION OF 



I pass over the absurdity of seeing and following a star in the 
day-time, as a man would a Will with the ivisp, or a candle and 
lantern at night ; and also that of seeing it in the east, when them- 
selves came from the east ; for could such a thing be seen at ali 
to serve them for a guide, it must be in the we.st to them. I con- 
fine myself solely to the passage called a prophecy of Jesus 
Christ. 

The book of Micah, in the passage above quoted, chap. v. ver. 
2, is speaking of some person without mentioning his name from 
whom some great achievements were expected ; but the descrip- 
tion he gives of this person at the 5th verse, proves evidently 
that it is not Jesus Christ, for he says at the 5th ver. 44 and this 
man shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come into our 
land, and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise 
up against him (that is, against the Assyrian) seven shepherds 
and eight principal men — v. 6. And they shall waste the land of 
Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod on the entrance 
thereof; thus shall He (the person spoken of at the head of the 
second verse) deliver us from the Assyrian when he cometh into 
our land, and when he treadeth within our borders." 

This is so evidently descriptive of a military chief, that it can- 
not be applied to Christ without outraging the character they pre- 
tend to give us of him. Besides which, the circumstances of. the 
times here spoken of, and those of the times in which Christ is 
said to have lived, are in contradiction to each other. It was the 
Romans, and not the Assyrians, that had conquered and were in 
the land of Judea, and trod in their palaces when Christ was born, 
and when he died, and so far from his driving them out, it was 
they who signed the warrant for his execution, and he suffered 
tinder it. 

Having thus shown that this is no prophecy of Jesus Christ. I 
pass on to the third passage quoted from the Old Testament by 
the New, as a prophecy of him. 

This, like the first I have spoken of, is introduced by a dream. 
Joseph dreameth another dream, and dreameth that he seeth 
another angel. The account begins at the 13th v. of 2d chap, of 
Matthew. 

44 The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, say- 
ing, Arise and take the young child and his mother and flee into 
Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word : For Herod will 



THE FROPHECIES. 



233 



&eek the life of the young child to destroy him. When he arose 
he took the young child and his mother by night and departed into 
Egypt — and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be 
fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 
Out of Egypt I have called my sou." 

This passage is in the book of Hosea, chap. xi. ver. 1. The 
words are, " When Israel was a child then I loved him and called 
my son out of Egypt — As they called them, so they went from them, 
they sacrificed unto Baalam and burnt incense to graven images. " 

This passage falsely called a prophecy of Christ, refers to the 
children of Israel coming out of Egypt in the time of Pharoah, 
and to the idolatory they committed afterwards. To make it 
apply to Jesus Christ, he must then be the person who sacrificed 
unto Baalam and burnt incense to graven images, for the person 
called out of Egypt by the collective name, Israel, and the per- 
sons committing this idolatory, are the same persons, or the 
descendants from them. This, then, can be no prophecy of Jesus 
Christ, unless they are willing to make an idolator of him. I pass 
on to the fourth passage, called, a prophecy by the writer of the 
book of Matthew. 

This is introduced by a story, told by nobody but himself, and 
scarcely believed by any body, of the slaughter of all the children 
under two years old, by the command of Herod. A thing which 
it is not probable should be done by Herod, as he only held 
an office under the R.oman government, to which appeals could 
always be had, as we see in the case of Paul. 

Matthew, however, having made or told his story, says, chap, 
ii. v. 17. — " Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jere- 
miah, the prophet, saying, — In Ramah ufas there a voice heard, 
lamentation, weeping and great mourning ; Rachael weeping for 
her children^ and would not be comforted because they were not." 

This passage is in Jeremiah, chap. xxxi. ver. 15, and this verse, 
when separated from the verses before and after it, and which ex- 
plains its application, might, with equal propriety, be applied to 
every case of wars, sieges, and other violences, such as the 
Christians themselves have often done to the Jews, wh°re mo- 
thers have lamented the loss of their children. There is nothing 
in the verse, taken singly, that designates or points out any particu- 
lar application of it, otherwise than it points to some circum- 
stances which, at the time of writing it, had already happened, 

30 



234 EXAMINATION 0$ 

and not to a thing yet to happen, for the verse is in the preter 07 
past tense. I go to explain the case and show the application 
of the verse. 

Jeremiah lived in the time that Nebuchadnezzar besieged, took ; 
plundered, and destroyed Jerusalem, and led the Jews captive to 
Babylon. He carried his violence against the Jews to every ex- 
treme. He slew the sons of king Zedekiah before his face, he 
then put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and kept him in prison till the 
day of his death. 

It is of this time of sorrow and suffering to the Jews that Jere- 
miah is speaking. Their temple was destroyed, their land deso- 
lated, their nation and government entirely broken up, and them- 
selves, men, women and children, carried into captivity. They 
had too many sorrows of their own, immediately before their eyes, 
to permit them, or any of their chiefs, to be employing themselves 
on things that might, or might not, happen in the world seven hun- 
dred years afterwards. 

It is, as already observed, of this time of sorrow and suffering to 
the Jews that .Jeremiah is speaking in the verse in question. In 
the two next verses, the 16th and 17th, he endeavours to console 
the sufferers by giving them hopes, and, according to the fashion 
of speaking in those days, assurances from the Lord, that their suf- 
ferings should have an end, and that their children should return 
again to their own children. But I leave the verses to speak for 
themselves, and the Old Testament to testify against the New. 

Jeremiah, chap. xxxi. ver. 15. — " Thus saith the Lord, a voice 
was heard in Ram ah (it is in the preter tense) lamentation and 
bitter weeping : Rachael, weeping for her children because they 
were not." 

Verse 16. — " Thus saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weep- 
ing, and thine eyes from tears ; for thy work shall be rewarded, 
said the Lord, and they shall come again from the land of the 
enemy." 

Terse 17. — " And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, 
i*iat thy children shall come again to their own border." 

By what strange ignorance or imposition is it, that the children 
of which Jeremiah speaks, (meaning the people of the Jewish na- 
tion, scripturally called children of Israel, and not mere infants un- 
der two years old,) and who were to return again from the land of 
the enemy, and come again into their own borders, can mean the> 



TKE PROPHECIES. 



^liiMren that Matthew makes Herod to slaughter? Could those 
Peturn again from the land of the enemy, or how can the land of the 
enemy be applied to them? Could they come again to their own 
borders ? Good heavens ! How has the world been imposed upon 
by Testament-makers, priestcraft, and pretended prophecies. I 
pass on to the fifth passage called a prophecy of Jesus Christ. 

This, like two of the former, is introduced by dream. Joseph 
dreamed another dream, and dreameth of another Angel. And 
Matthew is again the historian of the dream and the dreamer. If 
it were asked how Matthew could know what Joseph dreamed, 
neither the Bishop nor all the Church could answer the question. 
Perhaps it was Matthew that dreamed, and not Joseph ; that is, 
Joseph dreamed by proxy, in Matthew's brain, as they tell us 
Daniel dreamed for Nebuchadnezzar. But be this as it may, 1 go 
on with my subject. 

The account of this dream is in Matthew, chap. ii. verse 19. — 
44 But when Herod was dead, behold an angel of the Lord appear- 
ed in a dream to Joseph in Egypt — Saying, arise, and take the 
young child and its mother and go into the land of Israel, for they 
are dead which sought the young child's life — and he arose and 
took the young child and his mother and came into the land of 
Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea in 
the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither. Not- 
withstanding being warned of God in a dream (here is another 
dream) he turned aside into the parts of Galilee ; and he came 
and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which 
was spoken by the prophets. — He shall be called a JYazarine." 

Here is good circumstantial evidence, that Matthew dreamed, 
for there is no such passage in all the Old Testament ; and I in- 
vite the bishop and all the priests in Christendom, including those 
of America, to produce it. I pass on to the sixth passage, called 
a prophecy of Jesus Christ. 

This, as Swift says on another occasion, is lugged in head and 
shoulders ; it need only to be seen in order to be hooted as a forced 
and far-fetched piece of imposition. 

Matthew, chap. iv. v. 12. " Now when Jesus heard that John 
was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee — and leaving Naza- 
reth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea 
coast, in the borders of Zebulon and Nephthalim — That it might 
be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet, say- 



236 



EXAMINATION OF 



ing, The land of Zehidon and the land of JS r epthalim, by the way- 
of the sea, beijond Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles~the people 
which sat in darkness saw great light, and to them which sat in 
the region and shadow of death, light is springing upon them." 

I wonder Matthew has not made the cris-cross-row, or the christ* 
cross-ro v (I know not how the priests spell it) into a prophecy. 
He might as well have done this as cut out these unconnected 
and undescriptive sentences from the place they stand in and 
dubbeu ''em with that title. 

The woi Js, however, are in Isaiah, chap. ix. verse 1, 2, as fol- 
lows : — 

" Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vex-< 
ation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zehidon 
and th§ land of Nephthali, and afterwards did more grievously 
afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan in Galilee of the 
nations." 

All this relates to two circumstances that had already happened, 
at the time these words in Isaiah were written. The' one, where 
the land of Zebulon and Nephthali had been lightly afflicted, and 
afterwards more grievously by the way of the sea. 

But observe, reader, how Matthew has falsified the text. He 
begins his quotation at a part of the verse where there is not so 
much as a comma, and thereby cuts off every thing that relates 
to the first affliction. He then leaves out all that relates to the 
second affliction, and by this means leaves out every thing that 
makes the verse intelligible, and reduces it to a senseless skeleton 
cf names of towns. 

To bring this imposition of Matthew clearly and immediately 
before the eye of the reader, I will repeat the verse, and put be- 
tween crotchets the words he has left out, and put in Italics those 
he has preserved. 

[Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vex- 
ation when at the first he lightly afflicted] the land of Zebulon and 
the land of JVephthali, [and did afterwards more grievously afflict 
her] by the way of the sea beyond Jordan in Galilee of the nations. 

What gross imposition is it to gut, as the phrase is, a verse in 
this mannei , ender it perfectly senseless, and then puff it off on a 
credulous world as a prophecy. I proceed to the next verse. 

Ver. 2. " The people that walked in darkness have seen a great 
ight ; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon 



THE PROPHECIES. 



237 



them hath the light shined." All this is historical, and not in the 
least prophetical. The whole is in the preter tense : it speaks of 
things that had been accomplished at the time the words were writ- 
ten, and not of things to be accomplished afterwards. 

As then the passage is in no possible sense prophetical, nor in- 
tended to be so, and that to attempt to make it so, is not only to 
falsify the original, but to commit a criminal imposition ; it is mat- 
ter of no concern to us, otherwise than as curiosity, to know who 
the people were of which the passage speaks, that sat in darkness, 
and what the light was that shined in upon them. 

If we look into the preceding chapter, the 8th, of which the 9th 
is only a continuation, we shall (ind the writer speaking, at the 
19th verse, of" witches and wizards who peep about ami mutter," 
and of people who made application to them ; and he preaches and 
exhorts them against this darksome practice. It is of this people, 
and of this darksome practice, or walking in darkness, that he is 
speaking at the 2d verse of the 9th chapter ; and with respect to 
the light that had shined in upon them, it refers entirely to his own 
ministry, and to the boldness of it, which opposed itself to that of 
the Witches and wizards who peeped about and muttered. 

Isaiah is, upon the whole, a wild disorderly writer, preserving 
in general no clear chain of perception in the arrangement of his 
ideas, and consequently producing no defined conclusions from 
them. It is the wildness of his style, the confusion of his ideas, 
and the ranting metaphors he employs, that have afforded so many 
opportunities to priestcraft in some cases, and to superstition in 
others, to impose those defects upon the world as prophecies of 
Jesus Christ. Finding no direct meaning in them, and not know- 
ing what to make of them, and supposing at the same time they 
were intended to have a meaning, they supplied the defect by in- 
venting a meaning of their own, and called it his. I have, how- 
ever, in this place done Isaiah the justice to rescue him from the 
claws of Matthew, who has torn him unmercifully to pieces ; and 
from the imposition or ignorance of priests and commentators, by 
letting Isaiah speak for himself. 

If the words walking in darkness, and light breaking in, could 
in any case be applied prophetically, which they cannot be, they 
would better apply to the times we now live in than to any other, 
The world has " walked in darkness" '-for eighteen hundred years, 
both as to religion and government, and it is only since the Ame= 



238 



EXAMINATION OF 



rican Revolution began that light has broken in. The belief of 
one God, whose attributes are revealed to us in the book or scrip- 
ture of the creation, which no human hand can counterfeit or falsi- 
fy, and not in the written or printed book which, as Matthew has 
shown, can be altered or falsified by ignorance or design, is now 
making its way among us : and as to government, the light is al- 
ready gone forth, ' and whilst men ought to be careful not to be 
blinded by the excess of it, as at a certain time in France, when 
every thing was Robespierean violence, they ought to reverence, 
and even to adore it, with all the firmness and perseverance that 
true wisdom can inspire. 

I pass on to the seventh passage, called a prophecy of Jesus 
Christ. 

Matthew, chap. viii. ver. 16. " When the evening was. come, 
they brought unto him (Jesus) many that were possessed with 
devils, and he cast out the spirit with his word, and healed all that 
were sick. — -That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias 
(Isaiah) the prophet, saying, himself took our infirmities, and bare 
our sicknesses. 

This affair of people being possessed by devils, and of casting 
them out, was the fable of the day when the books of the New 
Testament were written. It had not existence at any other time. 
The books of the old Testament mention no such thing ; the peo- 
ple of the present day know of no such thing ; nor does the histo- 
ry of any people or country speak of such a thing. It starts upon 
hs all at once in the book of Matthew, and is altogether an inven- 
tion of the New Testament-makers and the Christian church. 
The book of Matthew is the first book where the word Devil is 
mentioned.* We read in some of the books of the Old Testa- 
ment of things called familiar spirits, the supposed companions of 
people called witches and wizards. It was no other than the trick 
of pretended conjurors to obtain money from credulous and ig- 
norant people, or the fabricated charge of superstitious malignancy 
against unfortunate and decrepid old age. 

But the idea of a familar spirit, if we can affix any idea to the 
term, is exceedingly different to that of being possessed by a 
devil. In the one case, the supposed familar spirit is a dexterous 
agent, that comes and goes and does as he is bidden ; in the 



* The word devU is a personification of the word evil, 



THE PROPHECIES. 



239 



other, he is a turbulent roaring monster, that tears and tortures 
the body into convulsions. Reader, whoever thou art, put thy 
trust in thy Creator, make use of the reason he endowed thee with, 
and cast from thee all such fables. 

The passage alluded to by Matthew, for as a quotation it is 
false, is in Isaiah, chap. liii. ver. 4, which is as follows : 

" Surely he (the person of whom Isaiah is speaking of) hath 
borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." It is in the preter 
tense. 

Here is nothing about casting out devils, nor curing of sick- 
nesses. The passage, therefore, so far from being a prophecy of 
Christ, is not even applicable as a circumstance. 

Isaiah, or at least the writer of the book that bears his name* 
employs the whole of this chapter, the 53d, in lamenting the suf- 
ferings of some deceased persons, of whom he speaks very 
pathetically. It is a monody on the death of a friend ; but he 
mentions not the name of the person, nor gives any circumstance 
of him by which he can be personally known ; and it is this silence, 
which is evidence of nothing, that Matthew has laid hold of to 
put the name of Christ to it ; as if the chiefs of the Jews, whose 
sorrows were then great, and the times they lived in big with dan- 
ger, were never thinking about their own affairs, nor the fate of 
their own friends, but were continually running a wild-goose chase 
into futurity. 

To make a monody into a prophecy is an absurdity. The char- 
acters and circumstances of men, even in different ages of the 
world, are so much alike, that what is said of one may with pro- 
priety be said of many ; but this fitness does not .make the 
passage into a prophecy ; and none but an impostor or a bigot 
would call it so. 

Isaiah, in deploring the hard fate and loss of his friend, men- 
lions nothing of him but what the human lot of man is subject to. 
All the cases he states of him, his persecutions, his imprisonment, 
his patience in suffering, and his perseverance in principle, are all 
w r ithin the line of nature : they belong exclusively to none, and 
may with justness be said of many. But if Jesus Christ was the 
person the church represents him to be, that which would exclu- 
sively apply to him, must be something that could not apply to 
any other person ; something beyond the line of nature ; some- 
thing beyond the lot of mortal man ; and there are no such 



240 



EXAMINATION OF 



expressions in this chapter, nor any other chapter in the Old 
Testament. 

It is no exclusive description to say of a person, as is said of 
the person Isaiah is lamenting in this chapter. He ivas oppressed 
and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth ; he is brought 
as a Lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers is 
dumb, so he opened not his mouth." This may be said of thou- 
sands of persons, who have .-ufTered oppressions and unjust death 
with patience, silence, and perfect resignation. 

Grotius, whom the bishop esteems a most learned man, and 
•who certainly was so, supposes that the person of whom Isaiah is 
speaking, is Jeremiah. Grotius is led into this opinion, from the 
agreement there is between the description given by Isaiah, and 
the case of Jeremiah, as stated in the book that bears his name. 
If Jeremiah was an innocent man, and not a traitor in the interest 
of Nebuchadnezzar, when Jerusalem was besieged his case was 
hard ; he was accused by his countrymen, was persecuted, op- 
pressed, and imprisoned, and he says of himself, (see Jeremiah, 
chap. ii. ver.'19,) " But as for me, I was like a lamb or an ox that 
is brought to the slaughter." 

I should be inclined to the same opinion with Grotius, had 
Isaiah lived at the time when Jeremiah underwent the cruelties of 
which he speaks ; but Isaiah died about fifty years before ; and it 
is of a person of his own time, whose case Isaiah is lamenting in 
the chapter in question, and which imposition and bigotry, more 
than seven hundred years afterwards, perverted into a prophecy of 
a person they call Jesus Christ. 

I pass .on to the eighth passage called a prophecy of Jesus 
Christ. 

Matthew, chap, xii. ver. 14. " Then the Pharisees went out 
and held a council against him, how they might destroy him — But 
when Jesus knew it he withdrew himself ; and great numbers fol- 
lowed him and he healed them all — and he charged them that they 
should not make him known ; That it might be fulfilled which was 
spoken by Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet, saying, 

" Behold my servant whom I have chosen ; my beloved in 
whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him, and 
he shall show judgment to the Gentiles — he shall not strive nor 
cry, neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets — a bruised 
reed shall he not break, and smoaking flax shall he not quench, till 



THE PROPHECIES. 241 

he sends forth judgment unto victory — and in his name shall the 
Gentiles trust." 

In the first place, this passage hath not the least relation t# 

the purpose for which it is quoted. 

Matthew says, that the Pharisees held a council against Jesus 

to destroy him — th.it Jesus withdrew himself— that great numbers 

followed him — that he healed them — and that he charged them 

they should not make him known. 

But the passage Matthew has quoted as being fulfilled by these 

circumstances, does not so much as apply to any one of them. It 
has nothing to do with the Pharisees holding a council to destroy 
J esus — with his withdrawing himself — with great numbers follow- 
ing him — with his healing them — nor with his charging them not 
to make him known. 

The purpose for which the passage is quoted, and the passage 
itself, are as remote from each other, as nothing from something. 
But the case is, that people have been so long in the habit of 
reading the books, called the Bible and Testament, with their 
eyes shut, and their senses locked up, that the most stupid incon- 
sistencies have passed on them for truth, agd imposition for pro- 
phecy. The all-wise Creator has been dishonoured by be- 
ing made the author of fable, and the human mind degraded by 
believing it. 

In this passage as in that last mentioned, the name of the per- 
son of whom the passage speaks is not given, and we are left in 
the dark respecting him. It is this defect in the history, that 
bigotry and imposition have laid hold of, to call it prophecy. 

Had Isaiah lived in the time of Cyrus, the passage would 
descriptively apply to him. As king of Persia, his authority was 
great among the Gentiles, and it is of such a character the pas- 
sage speaks ; and his friendship for the Jews whom he liberated 
from captivity, and who might then be compared to a braised 
reed, was extensive. But this description does not apply to 
Jesus Christ, who had no authority among the Gentiles ; and as 
to his own countrymen, figuratively described by the bruised 
reed, it was they who cru Ified him. Neither can it be said of 
him that he did not cry, and that his voice was not heard in the 
street. As a preacher it was his business to be heard, and we 
are told that he travelled about the country for that purpose, 
Matthew has given a long sermon, which (if his authority is good, 

31 



242 



EXAMINATION OF 



but which is much to be doubted since he imposes so mucti f ) 
Jesus preached to a multitude upon a mountain, and it would be 
a quibble to say that a mountain is not a street, since it is a place 
equally as public. 

The last verse in the passage (the 4th) as it stands in Tsaiah, 
and which Matthew has not quoted, says, u Tie shall not fail nor 
be discouraged till he have set judgment in the earth and the isles 
shall wait for his law." This also applies to ^yrus. He was not 
discouraged, he did not fail, he conquered all Babylon, liberated 
the Jews, and established laws. But this rannot be said of Jesus 
Christ, who in the passage before us, according to Mitthew, with- 
drew himself for fear of the Pharisees, and eharged the people 
that followed him not to make it known where he was ; and who, 
according to other parts of the Testament, was continually mov- 
ing from place to place to avoid being apprehended.* 



* In the second part of the Jlge of Reason, I have shown that the book as- 
cribed to Isaiah is not only miscellaneous as to matter, but as to authorship; 
that there are parts in it which could not be written by Isaiah, because they 
speak of things one hundred ami fifl y yen rs after he was dead. The instance 
I have given of this, in that work, corresponds with the subject I am upon, at 
least a little better than Matthew's introduction and his quotation. 

Isaiah lived, the latter part of his life, in the time of Hczekiah, and it wast 
about one hundred and fifty years, from the death of Hezekiah to t he first year 
of the reign of Cyrus, when Cyrus published a proclamation, which is given in 
the first chapter of the book of Ezra, for the return of the Jews to Jerusalem. 
It cannot be doubted, at least, it ought not to be doubted, that the Jews would 
feel an affectionate gratitude for this act of benevolent Justice, and it is natural 
they would express that gratitude in the customary style, bombastical and hy- 
perbolical as it was, which they used on extraordinary occasions, and wldch 
was, and still is in practice with all the eastern nations. 

The instance to which I refer, and which is given in the second part of the 
Age of Reason, is the last verse of the 44th chapter, and the beginning of the 
45th — i n these words: " That saith of Cyms, he is my shepherd and shall per- 
form all my pleasure : even saying to Jerusalem thou shalt be built, and to the 
Temple, thy foundation shall be laid. Tims saith the Lord to his anointed, to 
Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations before him; and I will 
loose the loins of kings, to open before him the tvio-leavcd gates, and the gates 
shall not be shut.'* 7 

This complementary address is in the present tense, which shows that the 
things of which ft speaks were in existence at the time of writing it ; and con- 
seouently that the author must have been at least one hundred and fifty years 
later than Isaiah, and that the book which bears Ids name is a compilation. 
The Proverbs called Solomon's, ami the Psalms called David's, are of the same 
kind. The two last verses of the second book of Chronicles, and the three first 
verses of the first chapter of Ezra, are word for word 'he same ; which show 
that the compilers of the Bible mixed the writings of different authors toge- 
ther, and put them under some common head. 

As we have here an instance in the 44th and 45th chapters of the introduc- 
tion of the name of Cyrus into a book to which it cannot belong, it affords good 
ground to conclude, that the passage in the 42d charter, in which the cnaracter 
ofCyrus is given without, his name, has been introduced in like m&nmgf^ 
that the person there spoken of is Cyrvis. 



rilE PROPHECIES. 



243 



^u*. it is immaterial to us, at this distance of time, to know 
who the person was : it is sufficient to the purpose I am upon, 
that of detecting -fraud and falsehood, to know who it was not, 
and to show ft was not the person called Jesus Christ. 

I pass on to the ninth passage called a prophecy of Jesus 
Christ. 

Matthew, chap. xxi. v. 1. " And when they drew nigh unto 
Jerusalem, and were come to Bethpage, unto the mount of Olives, 
then Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying unto them, go into the 
village over against you, and traightway ye shall find an ass tied, 
and a colt with her, loose them and bring them unto me — and if 
any man say ought to you, ye shall say, the Lord hath need of 
them, and straitvyay he will send them. 

" All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken 
by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Sion, behold thy 
king cometh unto thee, meek, and stiting upon an ass, and a colt 
the foal of an ass." 

Poor ass ! let it be some consolation amidst all thy sufferings, 
thit if the heathen world erected a bear into a constellation, the 
Christian .world has elevated thee into a prophecy. 

This passage is in Zechariah, chap. ix. ver 9, and is one of the 
whims of friend Zechariah to congratulate his countrymen, who 
were then returning from captivity in Babylon, and himself with 
them, to Jerusalem. It has no concern with any other subject. 
It is strange that apostles, priests, and commentators, never per- 
mit, or never suppose, the Jews to be speaking of their own 
affairs. Every thing in the Jewish books is perverted and dis- 
torted into meanings never intended by the waiters. Even the 
poor ass must not be a Jew-ass but a Christian-ass. I wonder 
they did not make an apostle of him. or a bishop, or at least make 
him speak and prophecy. He could have lifted up his voice as 
loud as any of them. 

Zechariah, in the first chapter of his book, indulges himself in 
several whims on the joy of getting back to Jerusalem. He 
says at the 8th verse, " 1 saw by night (Zechariah was a sharp- 
sighted seer) and behold a man setting on a red horse, (yes, 
reader, a red horse,) and he stood among the myrtle trees that were 
in the bottom, and behind him were red horses speckled and white." 
He says nothing about green horses, nor bine horses, perhaps be* 
cause it is difficult to distinguish green from blue by night, but a 



EXAMINATION «F 



Christian can have no doubt they were there, because "faith is 
the evidence of things not seen." 

Zechariah then introduces an angel among his horses, but he 
does not tell us what colour the angel was of, whether black or 
white, nor whether he came to buy horses, or only to look at them 
as curiosities, for certainly they were of that kind. Be this how- 
ever as it may, he enters into conversation with this angel, on the 
joyful affair of getting back to Jerusalem, and he saitb at the 16th 
verse, " Therefore, thus saith the Lord, / am returned to Jerusa- 
lem with mercies ; my house shall be built in it saith the Lord of 
hosts, and a line shall be stretched, forth upon Jerusalem. " An 
expression signifying the rebuilding the city. 

All this, whimsical and imaginary as it is, sufficiently proves that 
it was the entry of the Jews into Jerusalem from captivity, and 
not the entry of Jesus Christ, seven hundred years afterwards, 
that is the subject upon which Zechariah is always speaking. 

As to the expression of riding upon an ass, which commentators 
represent as a sign of humility in Jesus Christ, the case is, he ne- 
ver was so well mounted before. The asses of those countries 
are large and well-proportioned, and were anciently the chief of 
riding animals. Their beasts of burden, and which served also 
for the conveyance of the poor, were camels and dromedaries. 
We read in judges, chap. x. ver. 4, that " Jair, (one of the Judges 
©f Israel,) had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass-colts, and they 
had thirty cities." But commentators distort every thing. 

There is besides very reasonable grounds to conclude that this 
story of Jesus riding publicly into Jerusalem, accompanied, as it 
is said at the 8th and 9th verses, by a great multitude, shouting 
and rejoicing, and spreading their garments by the way, is altoge- 
ther a story destitute of truth. 

In the last passage called a prophecy that.! examined, Jesus is 
represented as withdrawing, that is, running away, and concealing 
himself for fear of being apprehended, and charging the people 
that were with him not to make him known. No new circum- 
stance had arisen in the interim to change his condition for the 
better; yet here he is represented as making his public entry into 
the same city from which he had fled for safety. The two cases 
contradict each other so much, that if both are not false, one of 
them at least can scarcely be true. For my own part, I do not 
Relieve there is one word of historical truth in the whole book. 



THE TROPHECIES. 245 

1 look upon it at best to be a romance : the principal personage of 
which is an imaginary or allegorical character founded upon some 
tale, and in which the moral is in many parts good, and the narra- 
tive part very badly and blunderingly written. 

I pass on to the tenth passage, called a prophecy of Jesus 
Ch.i.st. 

Matthew, chap. xxvi. ver. 51. " And behold one of them which 
was with Jesus (meaning Peter) stretched out his hand, and drew 
his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest, and smote off 
his ear. Then said Jesus unto him ; Put up again thy sword into 
its place, for all they that take the sword shall perish with the 
sword. Thinkest thou that 1 cannot now pray to my Father, and 
he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels. 
But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be. 
In that same hour Jesus said to the multitudes, are ye come out 
as against a thief, with swords and with staves for to take me? I 
sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on 
me. But all this was done that the scriptures of the prophets 
might be fulfilled. 

This loose and general manner of speaking, admits neither of 
detection nor of proof. Here is no quotation given, nor the name 
of any Bible author mentioned, to whieh reference can be had. 

There are, however, some high improbabilities against the truth 
of the account. 

First — It is not probable that the Jews, who were then a con- 
quered people, and under subjection to the Romans, should bo 
permitted to wear swords. 

Secondly — If Peter had attacked the servant of the high priest 
and cut off his ear, he would have been immediately taken up by 
the guard that took up his master and sent to prison with him. 

Thirdly — What sort of disciples and preaching apostles must 
those of Christ have been that wore swords ? 

Fourthly — This scene is represented to have taken place the 
same evening of what is called the Lord's supper, which makes, 
according to the ceremony of it, the inconsistency of wearing 
swords the greater. 

I pass on to the eleventh passage called a prophecy of Jesus 
Christ. 

Matthew, chap, xxvii. ver. 3. " Then Judas, which had be- 
trayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented him- 



M'6 



EXAMINATION OF 



self, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief 
priests and elders, saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed 
the innocent blood. And they said, what is that to us, see thou to 
that. And he cast down the thirty pieces of silver, and departed, 
and went and hanged himself-— And the chief priests took the sil- 
ver pieces and said, it is not lawful to put them in the treasury, 
because it is the price of blood — And they took counsel and 
bought with them the potter's field to bury strangers in — Where- 
fore that field is called the field of blood unto this day. Then 
was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, say- 
ing, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him 
that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value, 
and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me." 

This is a most barefaced piece of imposition. The passage 
in Jeremiah which speaks of the purchase of a field, has no more 
to do with the case to which Matthew applies it, than it has to do 
with the purchase of lands in America. I will recite the whole 
passage : 

Jeremiah, chap, xxxii. v. 6. "And Jeremiah said, the word 
of the Lord came unto me, saying— Behold Hanamiel, the son of 
Shalhim thine uncle, shall come unto thee, saying, buy thee my 
field that is in Anathoth, for the right of redemption is thine to 
buy it — So Hanamiel mine uncle's son came to me in the court of 
the prison, according to 'the word of the Lord, and said unto me, 
buy my field I pray thee that is in Anathoth, which is in the coun- 
try of Benjamin, for the right of inheritance is thine, and the re- 
demption is thine ; buy it for thyself. Then I knew this was the 
word of the Lord — And I bought the field of Hanamiel mine 
uncle's son, that was in Anathoth, and weighed him the money, 
even seventeen shekels of silver— and I subscribed the evidence 
and sealed it, and took witnesses and weighed him the money in 
balances. So I took the ■ evidence of the purchase, both that 
which was sealed according to the law and custom, and that which 
was open — and I gave the evidence of the purchase unto Baruch, 
the son of N"eriah, the son of Maasaeiath, in the sight of Hanamiel 
mine uncle's son, and in the presence of the witnesses that sub- 
scribed, before all the Jews that sat in the court of the prison — 
and i charged Baruch before them, saying, Thus saith the Lord 
of hosts, the God of Israel, Take these evidences, this evidence 
fai the purchase both which is sealed, and this evidence which is 



1 HE PROPHECIES. 



open, and put them in an earthen vessel, that they may continue 
many days — for thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, 
houses, and fields, and vineyards, shall be possessed again in this 
land." 

I forbear making any remark on this al ominable imposition of 
Matthew. The thing glaringly speaks for itself. It is priests 
and commentators that 1 rather ought to censure, for having 
preached falsehood so long, and kept people in darkness with re- 
spect to those impositions. I am nr>t contending with these men 
upon points of doctrine, for I know that sophistry has always a city 
of refuge. I am speaking of facts : for wherever the thing called a 
fact is a falsehood, the faith founded upon it is delusion, and the 
doctrine raised upon it not true. Ah, reader, put thy trust in thy 
Creator, and thou wilt be safe ! but if thou trustest to the book 
called the scriptures, thou trustest to the rotten staff of fable and 
falsehood. But I return to my subject. 

There is among the whims and reveries of Zechariah, mention 
made of thirty pieces of silver given to a potter. They can 
hardly have been so stupid as to mistake a potter for a field : and 
if they had, the passage in Zechariah has no more to do with 
Jesus, Judas, and the field to bury strangers in, than that already 
quoted. I will recite the passage. 

Zechariah, chap. xi. ver. 7. " And I will feed the flock of 
slaughter, even you, poor of the flock ; and I took unto me two 
staves ; the one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bands, and 
I fed the flock — Three shepherds also, I cut off in one month ; 
and my soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me. — Then 
said I, I will not feed you ; that which dieth, let it die ; and that 
which is to be cut off, let it be cut off ; and let the rest eat every 
one the flesh of another. — And I took my staff, even Beauty, and 
cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made 
■with all the people. — And it was broken in that day ; and so the 
poor of the flock who waited upon me, knew that it was the word 
of the Lord. 

" And I said unto them, if ye think good give me my price, and 
if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of sil- 
ver. And the Lord said unto me, cast it unto the potter, a goodly 
price that I was prized at of them ; and I took the thirty pieces of 
silver and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord. 



EXAMINATION OF 



" When I cut asunder mine other staff, even Bands, that 1 
wight break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel."* 

There is no making either head or tail of this incoherent gib- 
berish. His two staves, one called Beauty and the other Bands, 
is so much like a fairy tale, that I doubt if it had any other origin. 
- — There i&, however, no part th t has the least relation to the case 
stated in Matthew ; on the contrary, it is the reverse of it. Her© 
the thirty pieces of silver, whatever it was for, is called a goodly 
price, it was as much as the thing was worth, and according to the 
language of the day, was approved of by the Lord* and the money 
given to the potter in the house of the Lord. In the case of Jesus 
and Judas, as stated in Matthew, the thirty pieces of silver were 
the price of blood ; the transaction was condemned by the Lord, 
and the money when refunded, was refused admittance into the 
Treasury. Every thing in the two cases is the reverse of each 
other. 

Besides this, a very different and direct Contrary account to that 
of Matthew, is given of the affair of Judas, in the book called the 
Jlcts of the Jlposiics ; according to that book, the case is, that so 
far from Judas repenting and returning the money, and the high 
priest buying afield with it to bury strangers, in, Judas kept the 

* Whiston, in his Essay on the Old Testament, says, that the passage of 
Zechariah of which I have spoken, was in the copies of the Bible of the first 
century, in the book of Jeremiah, from whence, says he, it was taken and in- 
serted without coherence, in that of Zechariah — well, let it be so, it does not 
make the case a whit the better for the New Testament ; but it makes the 
case a great deal the worse for the Old. Because it shows, as I have mentioned 
respecting some passages in a book ascribed to Isaiah, that the works of different 
authors have been so mixed and confounded together, they cannot now be dis- 
criminated, except where they are historical, chronological, or biographical, as 
in the interpolation in Isaiah. It is the name of Cyrus inserted where it could not 
be inserted, as he was not in existence till one hundred and fifty years after the 
time of Isaiah, that detects the interpolation and the blunder with it. 

Whiston was a man of great literary learning, and what is of much higher 
degree, of deep scientific learning. He was one of the best and most celebra- 
ted mathematicians of his time, for which he was made professor of mathema- 
tics of the University of Cambridge. He wrote so much in defence of the Old 
Testament, and of what he calls prophecies of Jesus Christ, that at last he be- 
gan to suspect the truth of the Scriptures, and wrote against t hem ; for it is onby 
those who examine them, that see the imposition. Those who believe them 
most, are those who know least about them. 

Whiston, after writing so much in defence of the Scriptures, was at last pro- 
secuted for writing against them. It was this that gave occasion to Swift, in his 
ludicrous epigram on Dition and Whiston, each of which set up to find out the 
longitude, to call the one good master Ditton and the other, ivicked Will Whis- 
ton. But as Swift was a great associate with the Freethinkers of those days, 
such as Bolingbroke, Pope, and others, who did not believe the book called the 
scriptures, there is no certainty whether he wittily called him wicked for defend- 
ing the scriptures, or for writing against them. The known character of Swift 
decides for the former. 



THE PP..OFHEC1ZS 



249 



tnoney and bought a field with it for himself; and instead of hang- 
ing himself, as Matthews says, he fell headlong and burst asunder 
some commentators endeavour to get over one part of the con- 
tradiction by ridiculously supposing that Judas hanged himself 
first and the rope broke. 

Acts, chap. i. ver. 16. " Men and brethren, this scripture 
must needs have been fulfilled which the Holy Ghost by the 
mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was a guide 
to them that took Jesus. (David says not a word about Judas,) ver. 
17, for he (Judas) was numbered among us and obtained part of 
our ministry." 

Ver. 18. 11 Now this man purchased afield with the reward of 
iniquity, and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and 
his bowels gushed out." Is it not a species of blasphemy to call 
the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such con- 
tradictions and absurdities. 

I pass on to the twelfth passage called a prophecy of Jesus 
Christ. 

Matthew, chap, xxvii. ver. 35. " And they crucified him, and 
parted his garments, casting lots ; that it might be fulfilled which 
was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among 
them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots." This expression 
is in the 22d Psalm, ver. IS. The writer of that Psalm (whoever 
he was, for the Psalms are a collection and not the work of one 
man) is speaking of himself and his own case, and not that of ano- 
ther. He begins this Psalm with the words which the New Tes- 
tament writers ascribed to Jesus Christ. " My God, my God, 
why hast thou forsaken me" — words which might be uttered by a 
complaining man without any great impropriety, but very impro- 
perly from the mouth of a reputed God. 

The picture which the writer draws of his own situation in this 
Psalm, is gloomy enough. He is not prophecying, but complain- 
ing of his own hard case. He represents himself as surrounded 
by enemies, and beset by persecutions of every kind ; and by way 
of showing the inveteracy of his persecutors,, -he says, at the 18th 
verse, " They parted my garments among them, and cast lots upon 
my vesture." The expression is in the present tense ; and is the 
same as to say, they pursue me even to the clothes upon my back, 
and dispute how they shall divide them ; besides, the word vesture 
does not always mean clothing of any kind, but property, or rather 

32 



EXAMINATION OF 

the admitting a man to, or investing him with property; and as is 
is used in this Psalm distinct from the word garment, it appears to 
be used in this sense. But Jesus had no property ; for they make 
him say of himself, " The foxes have holes and the birds of the air 
have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head." 

But be this as it may, if we permit ourselves to suppose the Al- 
mighty would condescend to tell, by what is called the spirit of 
prophecy, what could come to pass in some future age of the world, 
it is an injury to our own faculties, and to our ideas of his great- 
ness, to imagine that it would be about an old coat, or an old pair of 
breeches, or about any thing which the common accidents of life, 
or the quarrels that attend it, exhibit every day* 

That which is in the power of man to do, or in his will not to 
do, is not a subject for prophecy, even if there were such a thing, 
because it cannot carry with it any evidence of divine power, or 
divine interposition : The ways of God are not the ways of men. 
That which an almighty power performs, or wills, is not within the 
circle of human power to do, or to controul. But any executioner 
and his assistants might quarrel about dividing the garments of a 
sufferer, or divide them without quarelling, and by that means ful- 
fil the thing called a prophecy or set it aside* 

In the passage before examined, I have exposed the falsehood 
of them. In this 1 exhibit its degrading meanness, as an insult to 
the Creator and an injury to human reason. 

Here end the passages called prophecies by Matthew. 

Matthew concludes his book by saying, that when Christ expired 
on the cross, the rocks rent, the graves opened, and the bodies of 
many of the saints arose ; and Mark says, there was darkness 
over the land from the sixth hour until the ninth. They produce 
no prophecy for this ; but had these things been facts, they would 
have been a proper subject for prophecy, because none but an 
almighty power could have inspired a fore-knowledge of them.^ 
and afterwards fulfilled them. Since then there is no such prophe- 
cy, but a pretended prophecy of an old coat, the proper deduction 
is, there were no such things, and that the book of Matthew is 
fable and falsehood. 

I pass on to the book called the Gospel according to St. Mark- 



IHE FKOI'llECICS. 



251 



THE BOOK OF MARK. 

There are but few passages in Mark called prophecies ; and 
but few in Luke and John. Such as there are I shall examine, 
and also such other passages as interfere with those cued uy Mat- 
thew. 

Mark begins his book by a passage which he puts in the shape 
of a prophecy. Mark. chap. 1, verse 1. — " The beginning oi the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God — As it is written in the 
prophets, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, which shall 
prepare the way before thee." Malachi, chap, iii, verse 1. The 
passage in the original is in the first person. Mark makes this 
passage to be a prophecy of John the Baptist, said by the Church 
to be a forerunner of Jesus Christ. But if we attend to the verses 
that follow this expression, as it stands in Malachi, and to the first 
and fifth verses of the next chapter, we shall see that this applica- 
tion of it is erroneous and false. 

Malachi having said, at the first verse, " Behold I will send my 
messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me," says, at the 
second verse, " But who may abide the day of his coming I and 
who shall stand when he appeareth t for he is like a refiner's tire, 
and like fuller's soap." 

This description can have no reference to the birth of Jesus 
Christ, and consequently none to John the Baptist. It is a scene 
of fear and terror that is here described, and the birth of Christ is 
always spoken of as a time of joy and glad tidings. 

Malachi, continuing to speak on the same subject, explains in 
the next chapter what the scene is of which he speaks in the 
verses above quoted, and whom the person is whom he calls the 
messenger. 

64 Behold," says he, chap. iv. verse 1, " the day cometh that shall 
burn like an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, 
shall be stubble ; and the day cometh that shall burn them up, 
saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor 
branch." - 

Verse 5. " Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before 
the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." 

By what right, or by what imposition or ignorance Mark has 
made Elijah into John the Baptist, and Malachi's description of 



252 



EXAMINATION OJ? 



the day of judgment into the birth day of Christ, I leave to the 
Bishop to settle. 

Mark, in the second and third verses of his first chapter, con- 
founds two passages together, taken from different books of the 
Oid Testament. The second verse, " Behold I send my messen- 
ger before thy face, which shall prepare the way before me," is 
taken, as I have said before, from Malachi. The third verse, 
which says, " The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare 
ye the way of the Lord, make his path straight," is not in Malachi, 
but in Isaiah, chap, xi, verse 3. Whiston says, that both these 
verses were originally in Isaiah. If so, it is another instance of 
the disordered state of the Bible, and corroborates what I have 
said with respect to the name and description of Cyrus being in 
the book of Isaiah, to which it cannot chronologically belong. 

The words in Isaiah, chap. xl. verse 3. " The voice of him 
that cryeth in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make 
his path straight," are in the present tense, and consequently not 
predictive. It is one of those rhetorical figures which the Old 
Testament authors frequently used. That it is merely rhetorical 
and metaphorical, may be seen at the 6th verse. " And the voice 
said, cry ; and he said what shall I cry ? Ml flesh is grass." This 
is evidently nothing but a figure ; for flesh is not grass otherwise 
than as a figure or metaphor, where one thing is put for another. 
Besides which, the whole passage is too general and declamatory 
to be applied exclusively to any particular person or purpose. 

I pass on to the eleventh chapter. 

In this chapter, Mark speaks of Christ riding into Jerusalem 
upon a colt, but he does not make it the accomplishment of a pro- 
phecy, as Matthew has done ; for he says nothing about a prophe- 
cy. Instead of which, he goes on the other tack, and in order to 
add new honors to the ass, he makes it to be a miracle ; for he 
says, ver. 2, it was "a colt whereon never man sat;" signi- 
fying thereby, that as the ass had not been broken, he consequent- 
ly was inspired into, good manners, for we do not hear that he 
kicked Jesus Christ off. There is not a word about his kicking 
in all the four Evangelists. 

I pass on from these feats of horsemanship, performed upon a 
jack-ass, to the 1 5th chapter. 

At the 24th verse of this chapter, Mark speaks of parting 
Christ 1 s garments and casting lots upon them, but he applies no 



THE PROPHECIES, 



253 



prophecy to it as Matthew does. He rather speaks of it as a 
thing then in practice with executioners, as it is at this day. 

At the 28th verse of the same chapter, Mark speaks of Christ 
being crucified between two thieves ; that, -ays he. " the scrip- 
tures might be fulfilled which sa and he ivas numbered with the 
transgressors." The same thin^ might be said of the thieves. 

This expression is in I -aiah, chap. liii. ver. 12 — Grotius applies 
it to Jeremiah. But the case has happened so often in the world, 
where innocent men have been numbered with transgressors, and 
is still continually happening, that it is absurdity to call it a pro- 
phecy of any particular person. All those whom the church 
call martyrs were numbered with transgressors. All the honest 
patriots who fell upon the scaffold in France, in the time of 
Robespierre, were numbered with transgressors ; and if himself 
had not fallen, the same case, according to a note in his own hand- 
writing, had befallen me ; yet I suppose the bishop will not allow 7 
that Isaiah was prophesying of Thomas Paine. 

These are all the passages in Mark which have any reference 
to prophecies. 

Mark concludes his book by making Jesus say to his disciples, 
chap. xvi. ver. 15, " Go ye into all the world and preach the Gos- 
pel to every creature ; he that believeth and is baptized shall be 
saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned, (fine Popish stuft' 
this,) and these signs shall follow them that believe ; in my name 
they shall cast out devils ; they shall speak with new tongues ; 
they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it 
shall not hurt them ; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they 
shall recover." 

Now, the bishop, in order to know i r he has all this saving and 
wonder-working faith, should try those things upon himself. He 
should take a good d >se of arsenic, and if he please, I will send 
him a rattle-snake from America !. As for myself, as I believe in 
God and not at all in Jesus Christ, nor in the books called the 
scriptures, the experiment does not concern me. 

I pass on to the book of Luke. 

There are no passages in Luke called prophecies, except- 
ing those which relate to the passages I have already examined. 

Luke speaks of Mary being espoused to Joseph, but he makes 
no references to the passage in Isaiah, as Matthew does. He 
speaks also of Jesus riding into Jerusalem upon a colt, but he 



254 



EXAMINATION OF 



says nothing about a prophecy. He speaks of John the Baptist 
and refers to the passage in Isaiah of which I have already 
spoken. 

^t the 13th chapter, verse 31, he says, "The same day there 
came certain of the Pharisees, saying unto him (Jesus) get thee 
out and depart hence for Herod will kill thee — and he said unto 
them, go ye and tell that fox, behold T cast out devils and I do 
cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I shall be per- 
fected." 

Matthew makes Herod to die whilst Christ was a child in Egypt, 
and makes Joseph to return with the child on the news of Herod's 
death, who had sought to kill him. Luke makes Herod to be 
living, and to .-=eek the life of Jesus after Jesus was thirty years of 
age : for he says, chap. iii. v. 23, " And Jesus began to be 
about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Jo- 
seph." 

The obscurity in which the historical part of the New Testa- 
ment is involved with respect to Herod, may afford to priests and 
commentators a plea, which to some may appear plausible, but to 
none satisfactory, that the Herod of which Matthew speaks, and 
the Herod of which Luke speaks, were different persons. Mat- 
thew calls Herod a king; and Luke, chap. iii. v. 1, calls Herod 
Tetrarch (that is, Governor) of Galilee. But there could be no 
such person as a kino- Herod, because the Jews and their country 
were then under the dominion of the Roman Emperors who gov- 
erned then by Tetrarchs or Governors. 

Luke, chap- ii. makes Jesus to be born when Cyrenius was 
Governor of Syria, to which government Judea was annexed ; 
and according to this, Jesus was not born in the time of Herod. 
Luke says nothing about Herod seeking the life of Jesus when he 
was born ; nor of his destroying the children under two years 
old ; nor of Joseph fleeing with Jesus into Egypt : nor of his re- 
turning from thence. On the contrary, the book of Luke speaks 
as if the person it calls Christ had never been out of Judea, and 
that Herod sought his life after he commenced preaching, as is be- 
fore stated. I have already shown that Luke, in the book called 
the Acts of the Apostles, (which commentators ascribe to Luke,) 
contradicts the account in Matthew, with respect to Judas and the 
thirty pieces of silver. Matthew says, that Judas returned the 
money, and that the high priests bought with it a field to bury 



THE PROPHECIES. 



253 



strangers in. Luke says, that Judas kept the money, and bought 
a field with it for himself. 

As it is impossible the wisdom of God should err, so it is im- 
possible those books should have been written by divine inspira- 
tion. Our belief in God, and his unerring wisdom, forbids us to 
believe it. As for myself, I feel religiously happy in the total dis- 
belief of it. 

There are no other passages called nrophecies in Luke than 
those 1 have spoken of. 1 pass on to the book of John. 



THE BOOK OF JOHN. 

John, like Mark and Luke, is not much of a prophecy-monger. 
He speaks of the ass, and the casting lots for Jesus' clothes, and 
some other trifles, of which 1 have already spoken. 

John makes Jesus to say, chap. v. ver. 46, " For had ye be- 
lieved Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me." 
The book of the Acts, in speaking of Jesus, says, chap. iii. ver. 
22, " For Moses truly said unto the fathers, a prophet shall the 
Lord your God raise up unto you, of your brethren, like unto me, 
him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shalt say unto you." 

This passage is in Deuteronomy, chap, xv iii. ver. 15. They 
apply it as a prophecy of Jesus. What impositions ! The per- 
son spoken of in Deuteronomy, and also in Numbers, where the 
same person is spoken of, is Joshua, the minister of Moses, and 
his immediate successor, and just such another Robespierrean 
character as Moses is represented to have been. The case, as re- 
lated in those books, is as follows : — 

Moses was grown old and near to his end, and in order to pre- 
vent confusion after his death, for the Israelites had no settled sys- 
tem of government ; it was thought best to nominate a successor 
to Moses while he was yet living. This was done, as we are told, 
m the following manner : 

Numbers, chap, xxvii*. ver. 12. " And the Lord said unto Mo- 
ses, get thee up into this mount Abarim, and see the land which I 
have given unto the children of Israel — and when thou hast seen 
it, thou also shall be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy bro- 
ther is gathered, ver. 15. And Moses spake unto the Lord, say- 



236 



EXAMINATION OF 



ing, Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a mart 
over the congregation — Which may go out before them, and which 
may go in before them, and which may lead them out, and which 
may bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord be not as 
sheep that have no shepherd — And the Lord said unto Moses, take 
thee Joshua, the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit, and lay 
thine hand upon him — and s< t him before Eleazar, the priest, and 
before all the congregation, and give him a charge in their sight — 
and thou shalt put some of thine honour upon him, that all the con- 
gregation of the children of Israel may be obedient — ver. 22, and 
Moses did as the Lord commanded, and he took Joshua, and set him 
before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation ; and he 
laid hands upon him, and gave him charge as the Lord command- 
ed by the hand of Moses." 

I have nothing to do, in this place, with the truth, or the conjura- 
tion here practised, of raising up a successor to Moses like unto 
himself. The passage sufficiently proves it is Joshua, and that it 
is an imposition in John to make the case into a prophecy of Jesus, 
But the prophecy-mongers were so inspired with falsehood, that 
they never speak truth.* 

* Newton, Bishop of Bristol in England, published a work in three volumes, 
entitled, "Dissertations on the Prophecies." The -work is tediously written and 
tiresome to read. He strains hard to make every passage into a prophecy that 
suits his purpose. — Among others, he makes this expression of Moses, " the 
Lord shall raise thee up a prophet like unto me," into a prophecy of Christ, 
who was not born, according to the Bible chronologies, till fifteen hundred and 
fifty-two years after the time of Moses, whereas it Avas an immediate successor 
to Moses, who was then near his end, that is spoken of in the passage above 
quoted. 

This Bishop, the better to impose this passage on the world as a prophecy 
of Christ, has entirely omitted the account in the book of Numbers which I 
have given at length, word for word, and which shows, beyond the possibility 
of a doubt, that the person spoken of by Moses, is Joshua, and no other per- 
son. 

Newton is but a superficial writer. He takes up things upon hear-say, and 
inserts them without either examination or reflection, and the more extraor- 
dinary and incredible they are, the better he likes them. 

In speaking of the walls of Babylon, (volume the first, page 263,) he makes 
a quotation from a traveller of the name of Tavernur, whom he calls, (by way 
of giving credit to what he says,) a celebrated traveller, that those walls were 
made of burnt brick, ten feet square and three feet thick. — If Newton had only 
thought of calculating the weight of such a brick, he would have seen the im- 
possibility of their being used or even made. A brick ten feet square, and 
three feet thick, contains three hundred cubic feet, and allowing a cubic foot 
of brick to be only one hundred pounds, each of the Bishop's bricks would 
weigh thirty thousand pounds ; and it would take about thirty cart leads of 
clay (one horse carts) to make one brick. 

But his account of the stones used in the building' of Solomon's temple, (vol- 
ume 2d, page 211,) far exeeeds his bricks of ten feet square in the walls ot 
Babylon - f these are but brick-bats compared to them. 



1 HE PROPHECIES. 



257 



1 pass to the last passage in these fables of the Evangelists 
tailed a prophecy of Jesus Christ. 

John, having spoken of Jesus expiring on the cross between two 
thieves, says, chap. xix. verse 32. " Then came the soldiers and 
brake the legs of the first (meaning one of the thieves) and of the 
other which was crucified with him. But when they came to 
Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs — 
verse 36, for these things were done that the Scripture should be 
fulfilled, Jl bone of him shall not be broken." 

The passage here referred to is in Exodus, and has no more to 
do with Jesus than with the ass he rode upon to Jerusalem ; — nor 
yet so much, if a roasted jack-ass, like a roasted he-goat, might be 
oaten at a Jewish passover. It might be some consolation to an 
ass to know that though his bones might be picked, they would 
not be broken. I go to state the case. 

The book of Exodus, in instituting the Jewish passover, in 
which they were to eat a he-lamb or a he-goat, says, chap, xiij 



The stones ^says he) employed in the foundation, were in magnitude fort/ 
cubits, that is, above sixty feet, a cubit, says he, being somewhat more than 
one foot and a half, (a cubit is one foot nine inches,) and the superstructure 
(says this Bishop) was worthy of such foundations. There were some stones, 
says he, of the whitest marble forty-five cubits lon^, five cubits high, and six 
cubits broad. These are the dimensions this Bishop has given, which in 
measure of twelve inches to a foot, is 7S feet nine inches long, 10 feet 6 inches 
broad, and 8 feet three inches thick, and contains 7,234 cubic feet. I now go 
to demonstrate the imposition of this Bishop. 

A cubic foot of water weighs sixty- two pounds and a half — The specific 
gravity of marble to water is as 2 1-2 is to one. The weight, therefore, of a cu* 
bic foot of marble is 556 pounds, which, multiplied by 7,234, the number of cubic 
feet in one of those stones, makes the weight of it to be 1,128,504 pounds, which 
is 503 tons. Allowing then a horse to draw about half a ton, it will require a 
thousand horses to draw one such stone on the ground ; how then were they to 
be lifted into the building by human hands ? 

The bishop may talk of faith removing mountains, but all the faith of all the 
Bishops that ever lived could not remove one of those stones and their bodily 
Strength given in. 

This Bishop also tells of great guns used by the Turks at the taking of Con- 
stantinople, one of which, he says, was drawn by seventy yoke of oxen, and by 
two thousancrrnen. • Vol. 3d, page 117. 

The weight of a cannon that carries a ball of 43 pounds, which is the largest 
cannon that are cast, weighs 8000 pounds, about three tons and a half, and may 
be drawn by three yoke of oxen. Any body may now calculate what the 
weight of the Bishop's great gun must be, that required seventy yoke of oxen 
to draw it, This Bishop beats Gulliver. 

When men give up the use of the divine gift of reason in writing on any sub- 
ject, be it religious or any thing else, there are no bounds to their extravagance, 
no limit to their absurdities. 

The three volumes which this Bishop has written on what he calls the pro- 
phecies, contain above 1290 pages, and he says in vol. 3, page 117, n< I have sfrM 
died brevity.''' 1 This is as marvellous as the Bishop's great gun- 

33 



EXAMINATION OF 



verse 5. " Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first 
year ; ye shall take it from the sheep or from the goats." 

The book, after stating some ceremonies to be used in killing 
and dressing it, (for it was to be roasted, not boiled,) says, ver. 43 r 
" And the Lord said unto Moses and Aaron, this is the ordinance 
of the passover : there shall no stranger eat thereof ; but every 
man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circum- 
cised him, then shall be eat thereof. A foreigner shall not eat 
thereof. In one house shall it be eaten ; thou shalt not carry 
forth ought of the f5e*h thereof abroad out of the house ; neither 
shalt thou break a bone thereof.'''' 

We here see that the case as it stands in Exodus is a ceremony 
and not a prophecy, and totally unconnected with Jesus's bones y 
or any part of him. 

John, having thus rilled up the measure of apostolic fable, con- 
cludes his book with something that beats all fable ; for he says 
at the last verse, " And there are also many other things which, 
Jesus did, the which if they could be written every one, J suppose 
that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be 
written." 

This is what in vulgar life is called a thumper ; that is, not only 
a lie, but a lie beyond the line of possibility ; besides which it is 
an absurdity, for if they should be written in the world, the world 
would contain them.— Here ends the examination of the passages 
called prophecies. 



I have now, reader, gone through and examined all the passages 
which the four books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, quote 
from the Old Testament and call them prophecies of Jesus Christ. 
When I first sat down to this examination, I expected to find cause 
for some censure, but little did I expect to find them so utterly 
destitute of truth, and of all pretensions to it, as I have shown 
them to be. 

The practice which the writers of those books employ is not 
more false than it is absurd. They state some trifling case of the 
person they call Jesus Christ, and then cut out a sentence from 
some passage of the Old Testament and call it a 'prophecy of that 
case. But when the words thus cut out are restored to the place 
they are taken from, and read with the words before and after 



'SHE PROPHECIES. 



259 



them, they give the lie to the New Testament. A short instance 
or two of this will suffice for the whole. 

They make Joseph to dream of an angel, who informs him that 
Herod is dead, and tells him to come with the child out of Egypt. 
They then cut out a sentence from the book of Hosea, " Out of 
Egypt have J called my Son" and apply it as a prophecy in that 
case. 

The words " And called my Son out of Egypt," are in the 
Bible ; — but what of that? They are only part of a passage, and 
not a whole passage, and stand immediately connected with other 
words, which show they refer to the children of Israel coming out 
of Egypt in the time of Pharoah, and to the idolatry they com- 
mitted afterwards. 

Again, they tell us that when the soldiers came to break the 
legs of the crucified persons, they found Jesus was already dead, 
and, therefore, did not break his. They then, with some alteration 
of the original, cut out a sentence from Exodus, " a bone of him 
shall not be broken," and apply it as a prophecy of that case. 

The words " Neither shall ye break a bone thereof" (for they 
have altered the text,) are in the Bible — but what of that? They 
are, as in the former case, only part of a passage, and not a whole 
passage, and when read with the words they are immediately 
joined to, show it is the bones of a he-lamb or a he-goat of which 
the passage speaks. 

These repeated forgeries and falsifications create a well-founded 
suspicion, that all the cases spoken of concerning the person 
called Jesus Christ are made cases, on purpose to lug in, and that 
very clumsily, some broken sentences from the Old Testament, 
and apply them as prophecies of those cases ; and that so far from 
his being the Son of God, he did not exist even as a man — that he 
is merely an imaginary or allegorical character, as Apollo. Hercules, 
Jupiter, and .ill the deities of antiquity were. There is no history 
written at the time Jesus Christ is said to have lived that speaks 
of the existence of such a person, even as a man. 

Did we find in any other book pretending to give a system of 
religion, the falsehoods, falsifications, contradictions, and absurdi- 
ties, which are to be met with in almost every page of the Old and 
New Testament, all the priests of the present day, who supposed 
themselves capable, would triumphantly show their skill in criti- 
cism, and cry it down as a most glaring imposition. But since the 



EXAMINATION OF 



books in question belong to their own trade and profession, they 
or at least many of them, seek to stifle every inquiry into them, 
and abuse those who have the honesty and the courage to do it. 

When a book, as is the case with the Old and New Testa- 
ment, is ushered into the world under the title of being the Wori> 
of God, it ought to be examined with the utmost strictness, in 
order to know if it has a well founded claim to that title or not* 
and whether we are or are not imposed upon : for as no poison is 
30 dangerous as that which poisons the physic, so no falsehood is 
so fatal as that which is made an article of faith.. 

This examination becomes more necessary, because when the 
New Testament was written, I might say invented, the art of print- 
ing was not known, and there were no other copies of the Old 
Testament than written copies. A written copy of that book 
would cost ;about as much as six hundred common printed bibles 
Bow cost. Consequently was in the hands of very few persons* 
and these chiefly of the church. This gave an opportunity to the 
writers of the New Testament to make quotations from the Old 
Testament as they pleased, and call them prophecies, with very 
little danger of being detected. Besides which, the terrors and 
inquisitorial fury of the church, like what they tell us of the flaming 
sWord that turned every way, stood sentry over the New Testa- 
ment ; and time, which brings every thing else to light, has served 
to thicken the darkness that guards it from detection. 

Were the New Testament now to appear for the first time, 
every priest of the present day would examine it line by line, and 
compare the detached sentences it calls prophecies with the whole 
passages in the Old Testament from whence they are taken. 
Why then do they not make the same examination at this time, as 
they would make had the New Testament never appeared before? 
If it be proper and right to make it in one case, it is equally proper 
and right to do it in the other case. Length of time can make no 
difference in the right to do it at any time. But, instead of doing 
this, they go on as their predecessors went on before them, to tell 
the people there are prophecies of Jesus Christ, when the truth is 
there are none. 

They tell us that Jesus rose from the dead, and ascended into 
heaven. It is very easy to say so ; a great lie is as easily told as 
a little one. But if he had done so, those would have been the 
©nly circumstances respecting him that would have differed from 



{THE PROPHECIES. 



i>6! 



che common lot of man ; and, consequently, the only case that 
would apply exclusively to him, as prophecy, would be some pas- 
sage in the Old Testament that foretold such things of him. But 
there is not a passage in the Old Testament that speaks of a per- 
son, who, after being crucified, dead, and buried, should rise from 
the dead, and ascend into heaven. Our p; ophecy-mongcrs supply 
the silence the Old Testament guards upon such things, by telling 
us of passages they call prophecies, and that falsely so, about 
Joseph's dream, old clothes, broken bones, and such like trifling 
stuff. 

In writing upon this, as upon every other subject, I speak a lan- 
guage full and intelligible. I deal not in hints and intimations. I 
have several reasons for this : First, that I may be clearly under- 
stood. Secondly, that it may be seen I amuin earnest. And third- 
ly, because it is an affront to truth to treat falsehood with com- 
plaisance. 

I will close this treatise with a subject I have already touched 
upon in the First Part of the Jlge of Reason. 

The world has been amused with the term revealed religion, and 
the generality of priests apply this term to the books called the 
Did and New Testament. The Mahometans apply the same term 
to the Koran. There is no man that believes in revealed religion 
stronger than I do ; but it is not the reveries of the Old and New 
Testament, nor of the Koran, that I dignify with that sacred title. 
That which is revelation to me, exists in something which no hu- 
man mind can invent, no human hand can counterfeit or alter. 

The Word of God is the Creation we behold ; and this word of 
God revealeth to man all that is necessary for man to know of 
his Creator. 

Do we want to contemplate his power ? We see it in the 
immensity of his creation. 

Do we want to contemplate his wisdom ? We see it in the 
unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible whole is 
governed. 

Do we want to contemplate his munificence ? We see it ia 
the abundance with which he fills the earth. 

Do we want to contemplate his mercy ? We see it in his noi 
withholding that abundance, even from the unthankful. 

J)o we want to contemplate his will, so far as it respects man t 



^262 



EXAMINATION OF 



The goodness he shows to all, is a lesson for our conduct to eacls 
other. 

In fine — Do we want to know what God is? Search not the 
book called the Scripture, which any human hand might make, or 
any impostor invent ; but the scripture called the Creation. 

When, in the first part of the Age of Reason, I called the Crea- 
tion the true revelation of ( -'od to man, I did not know that any 
other person had expressed the same idea. But I lately met 
with the writings of Doctor Conyers Middleton, published the 
beginning of last century, in which he expresses himself in the 
same manner with respect to the Creation, as I have done in the 
Age of Reason. 

He was principal librarian of the University of Cambridge, in 
England, which furnished him with extensive opportunities of 
reading, and necessarily required he should be well acquainted 
with the dead as well as the living languages. He was a man of 
a strong original mind ; had the courage to think for himself, and 
the honesty to speak his thoughts. 

He made a journey to Rome, from whence he wrote letters to 
show that the forms and ceremonies of the Romish Christian 
Church were taken fro n the degenerate state of the heathen my- 
thology, as it stood in the latter times of the Greeks and Romans. 
He attacked without ceremony the miracles which the church pre- 
tend to perform : and in one of his treatises, he calls the creation 
a revelation. The priests of England of that day, in order to de- 
fend their citadel by first defending its out-works a attacked him for 
attacking the Roman ceremonies ; and one of them censures him 
for calling the creation a revelation— -he thus replies to him : 

*' One of them," says he, " appears to be scandalized by the 
title of revelation which I have given to that discovery which God 
made of himself in the visible works of his creation. Yet it is no 
other than what the wise in all ages have given to it, who consider 
it as the most authentic and indisputable revelation which God 
has ever given of hiusself, from the beginning of the world to this 
day. It was this by which the first notice of him was revealed 
to the inhabitants of the earth, and by which alone it has been kept 
up ever since among the several nations of it. From this the 
reason of man was enabled to trace out his nature and attributes, 
and, by a gradual deduction of consequences, to learn his own 
mature also, with all the duties belonging to it ? which relate either 



THE PROPHECIES. 



263 



io God or to his fellow-creatures. This constitution of things 
was ordained by God, as an universal law, or rule of conduct to 
man — the source of all his knowledge — the test of all truth, by 
which all subsequent revelations which are supposed to have 
been given by God in any other manner, must be tried, and can- 
not be received as divine any further than as they are found to 
tally and coincide with this original standard- 

" It was this divine law which T referred to in the passage above 
recited, (meaning the passage on which they had attacked him,) 
being desirous to excite the readers attention to it, as it would 
enable him to judge more freely of the argument I was handling. 
For, by contemplating this law, he would discover the genuine way 
which God . himself has marked out to us for the acquisition of true 
knowledge ; not from the authority or reports of our fellow-crea- 
tures, but from the information of the facts and material objects 
which in his providential distribution of worldly things, he hath 
presented to the perpetual observation of our senses. For as it 
was from these that his existence and nature, the most important 
articles of all knowledge, were first discovered to man, so that 
grand discovery furnished new light towards tracing out the rest, 
and made all the inferior subjects of human knowledge more 
easily discoverable to us by the same method. 

" I had another view likewise in the same passage, and appli- 
cable to the same end, of giving the reader a more enlarged 
notion of the question in dispute, who, by turning his thoughts to 
reflect on the works of the Creator, as they are manifested to us 
in this fabric of the world, could not fail to observe, that they are 
all of them great, noble, and suitable to the majesty of his nature* 
carrying with them the proofs of their origin, and showing them- 
selves to be the production of an all- wise and Almighty being ; 
and by accustoming his mind to these sublime reflections, he will 
be prepared to determine, whether those miraculous interpositions 
so confidently affirmed to us by the primitive fathers, can. rea- 
sonably be thought to make part in the grand scheme of the divine 
administration, or whether it be agreeable that God, who created 
all things by his will, and can give what turn to them he pleases 
by the same will, should, for the particular purposes of his govern- 
ment and the services of the church, descend to the expedient of 
visions and revelations, granted sometimes to hoys for the insiruc- 
rion of the elders, and sometimes to women to settle the fashion 



S64 EXAMINATION Oi 

and length of their veils, and sometimes to pastors of the Cmirc!^ 
to enjoin them to ordain one man a lecturer, another a priest ; — ? 
or that he should scatter a profusion of miracles around the stake 
of a martyr, yet all of them vain and insignificant, and without any 
sensible effect, either of preserving the life, or easing the sufferings 
of the saint; or even of mortifying his persecutors, who were 
always left to enjoy the full triumph of their cruelty, and the poor 
martyr to expire in a miserable death. When these things, I say, 
are brought to the original test, and compared with the genuine 
and indisputable works of the Creator, how minute, how trifling, 
how contemptible must they be 1 — and how incredible must it be 
thought, that for the instruction of his church, God should employ 
ministers so precarious, unsatisfactory, and inadequate, as the- 
estacies of women and boys, and the visions of interested priests, 
which were derided at the very time by men of sense to whom 
they were proposed. 

44 That this universal law (continues Middleton, meaning the 
law revealed in the works of the creation) was actually revealed 
to the heathen world long before the gospel was known, we learn 
from all the principal sages of antiquity, who made it the capital 
subject of their studies and writings. 

" Cicero has given us a short abstract of it in a fragment still 
remaining from one of his books on government, which I shall 
here transcribe in his own words, as they will illustrate my sense 
also, in the passages that appear so dark and dangerous to my 
antagonists." 

" The true law, (says Cicero,) is right reason conformable to 
the nature of things, constant, eternal, diffused through all, which 
calls us to duty by commanding — deters us from sin by forbid- 
ding ; which never loses its influence with the good, nor ever 
preserves it with the wicked. This law cannot be over-ruled by 
any other, nor abrogated in whole or in part ; nor can we be ab- 
solved from it either by the senate or by the people ; nor are we to 
seek any other comment or interpreter of it but himself; nor can 
therebe one law at Rome and another at \thens — one now and an- 
other hereafter : but the same eternal immutable law comprehends 
all nations at all times, under one common master and governor 
of all — God. He is the inventor, propounder, enacter of this 
law ; and whoever will not obey it must first renounce himself 
and throw off the nature of man ; by doing which, he will suffeY 



THE PROPHECIES. 



265 



$re greatest punishments, though he should escape all the other 
torments which are commonly believed to be prepared for the 
wicked." Here ends the quotation from Cicero. 

" Our Doctors (continues Middleton) perhaps will look on this 
as rank deism ; but let them call it what they will, I shall ever 
avow and defend it as the fundamental, essentia!, and vital part of 
all true religion." Here ends the quotation from Middleton. 

I have here given the reader two sublime extracts from men 
who lived in ages of time far remote, from each other, but who 
thought alike. Cicero lived before the time in which they tell us 
Christ was born. Middleton may be called a man of our own 
time, as he lived within the same century with ourselves. 

In Cicero we see that vast superiority of mind, that sublimity of 
light reasoning and justness of ideas which man acquires, not by 
studying Bibles and Testaments, and the theology of schools built 
thereon, but by studying the Creator in the immensity and un- 
changeable order of his creation, and the immutability of his law. 
4< There cannot " says Cicero, " be one law now, and another here- 
after ; hut the same eternal immutable law comprehends all nations, 
at all times, under one common master and governor of all — God." 
But according to the doctrine of schools which priests have set up, 
we see one law, called the Old Testament, given in one age of the 
world, and another law, called the New Testament, given in an- 
other age of the world. As all this is contradictory to the eternal 
immutable nature, and the unerring and unchangeable wisdom of 
God, we must be compelled to hold this doctrine to be false, and 
the old and the new law, called the Old and the New Testament, 
to be impositions, fables, and forgeries. 

In Middleton, we see the manly eloquence of an enlarged mind 
and the genuine sentiments of a true believer in his Creator. In? 
stead of reposing his faith on books, by whatever name they may 
be called, whether Old Testament or New, he fixes the creation 
as the great original standard by which every other thing called the 
the word, or work of God, to be tried. In this we have an 
indisputable scale, whereby to measure every word or work im- 
puted to him. If the thing so imputed carries not in itself the 
evidence of the same Almightmess of power, of the same unerr- 
ing truth and wisdom, and the same unchangeable order in all its 
parts, as are visibly demonstrated to our senses, and inconrpre* 

34 



266 



EXAMINATION OF 



hensible by our reason, in the magnificent fabric of the miiversey 
that word or that work is not of God. Let then the two books 
called the Old and New Testament be tried by this rule, and the 
result will be, that the authors of them, whoever they were, will be 
convicted of forgery. 

The invariable principles, and unchangeable order, which regu» 
late the movements of all the parts thatcompose the universe, 
demonstrate both to our senses and our reason that its Creator is a 
God of unerring truth. But. the Old Testament, besides the num- 
berless, absurd, and bagatelle stories it telis of God, represents 
him as a God of deceit, a God not to be confided in. Ezekiel 
makes God to say, chap. 14, ver. 9, ;< And if the prophet be 
deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I, the Lord have deceived 
that prophet." And at the 20th chap. ver. 25, he makes God in 
speaking of the children of Israel to say " Wherefore I gave them 
statutes that were not good, and judgments by which they could 
Wot live." 

This, so far from being the word of God, is horrid blasphemy 
against him. Reader put thy confidence in thy God, and put no 
trust in the Bible. 

The same Old Testament, after telling us that God created the 
heavens and the earth in six days, nakes the same almighty power 
and eternal wisdom employ itself in giving directions how a priest's 
garment should be cut, and what sort of stuff they should be made 
of, and what their offerings should be, gold, and silver, and brass, 
and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goat's hair, 
and rams' skins died red, and badger skins, &c. chap. xxv. ver. 3 ; 
and in one of the pretended prophecies I have just examined, 
God is made to give directions how they should kill, cook, and eat 
a he-lamb or a he~<roat. And Ezekiel, <hap. iv. to fill up the 
measure of abominable absurdity, makes God to order him to take 
" wheat, and- barley, and beans, andlentiles, and millet, and fitches, 
and make a loaf or a cake thereof, and bake it with human dung 
and eat it but as zekiel complained that this mess was too 
strong for his stomach, the matter was compromised from man's 
dung to cow dung, Ezekiel, chap. iv. Compare all this ribaldry, 
blasphemously called the word of God, with the Almighty power 
that created the universe, and whose eternal wisdom directs and 
governs all its mighty movements, and we shall be at a loss to find 
a name sufficiently contemptible for it. 



THE PROPHECIES. . 267 

In the promises which the Old Testament pretends that God 
tnade to his people, the same derogatory ideas of him prevail. It 
makes God to promise to Abraham, that his seed should be like 
the stars in heaven and the sand on the sea shore for multitude, 
and that he would give them the land of Canaan as their inheri- 
tance for ever. But observe, reader, how the performance of this 
promise was to' begin, and then ask thine own reason, if the wisdom 
of God, whose power is equal to his will, could, consistently with 
that power and that wisdom, make such a promise. 

The performance of the promise was to begin, according to that 
book, by four hundred years of bondage and affliction. Genesis, 
chap. xv. ver. 13. "And God said unto Abraham, know of a 
surety, that thy seed shaft be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, 
and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred 
years." This promise, then, to Abraham, and his seed forever, to 
inherit the land of Canaan, had it been a fact, instead of a fable, 
was to operate, in the commencement of it, as a curse upon all 
the people and their children, and their children's children for four 
hundred years. 

But the case is, the Book of Genesis was written after the bond- 
age in Egypt had taken place ; and in order to ^et rid of the dis- 
grace of the Lord's chosen people, as they called themselves, be- 
ing in bondage to the Gentiles, they make God to be the author of 
it, and annex it as a condition to a pretended promise ; as if 
God, in making that promise, had exceeded his power in perform- 
ing it, and consequently his wisdom in making it, and was obliged 
to compromise with the?n for one half, and with the Egyptians, to 
whom they were to be in bondage, for the other half. 

Without degrading my own reason by bringing those wretched 
and contemptible tales into a comparative view, with the Almighty 
power and eternal wisdom, which the Creator hath demonstrated 
to our senses in the creation of the universe, I will confine myself 
to say, that if we compare them with the divine and forcible senti- 
ments of Cicero, the result will be, that the human mind has de- 
generated by believing them. Man in a state of grovelling super- 
stition, from which he has not courage to rise, looses the energy 
of his mental powers. 

I will not tire the reader with more observations on the Old 
Testament. 

As to the New Testament, if it be brought and tried by that 



263 



EXAMINATION OF 



standard, which, as Middleton wisely says, God has revealed t© 
our senses of his Almighty power and wisdom in the creation and 
government of the visible universe, it will be found equally as 
false, paltry, and absurd, as the Old. 

Without entering, in this place, into any other argument, that 
the story of Christ is of human invention, and not of divine ori- 
gin, I will confine myself to show that it is derogatory to God, by 
the contrivance of it ; because thf means it supposes God to use, 
are not adequate to the end to be obtained ; and, therefore, are de- 
rogatory to the Almightiness of his power, and the eternity of his 
wisdom. ' 

The New Testament supposes that God sent his Son upon 
earth to make a new covenant with man ; which the church calls 
the covenant of Grace, and to instruct mankind in a new doctrinej 
which it calls Faith, meaning thereby, not faith in God, for Cicero 
and all true Deists always had and always will have this ; but faith 
in the person called Jesus Christ, and that whoever had not this 
faith should, to use the words of the New Testament, be 
DAMNED. 

Now, if this were a fact, it is consistent with that attribute of 
God, called his Goodness, that no time should be lost in letting 
poor unfortunate man know it ; and as that goodness was united 
to Almighty power, and that power to Almighty wisdom, all the 
means existed in the hand of the Creator to make it known imme- 
diately over the whole earth, in a manner suitable to the Almighti- 
ness of his divine nature, and with evidence that would not leave 
man in doubt ; for it is always incumbent upon us, in all cases, to 
believe that the Almighty always acts, not by imperfect means as 
imperfect man acts, but consistently with his Almightiness. It is 
this only that can become the infallible criterion by which we can 
possibly distinguish the works of God from the works of man. 

Observe now, render, how the comparison ! etween this supposed 
mission of Christ, on the belief or disbelief of which they say 
man was to be saved or damned — observe, I s^y, how the com- 
parison between this and the Almighty power and wisdom of God 
demonstrated to our senses in the visible creation, goes on. 

The Old Testament tells us that God created the heavens and 
the earth, and every thing therein, in six days. The term six 
days is ridiculous enough when applied to God ; but leaving out 
tfcat absurdity, it contains the idea of Almighty power acting 



THE PROPHECIES. 



289 



unitedly with Almighty wisdom, to produce an immense work, 
that of the creation of the universe and every thing therein, in a 
short time. 

Now as the eternal salvation of man is of much greater impor- 
tance than his creation, and as that salvation depends, as the New 
Testament tells us, on man's knowledge of, and belief in the per- 
son calivid Jesus Christ, it necessarily follows from our belief in 
the goodness and justice of God, and our knowledge of his al- 
mighty power and wisdom, as demonstrated in the creation, that 
ai-l this, if true, would be made known to all parts of the world, 
in as little time at least, as was employed in making the world. 
To suppose the Almighty would pay greater regard and attention 
to the creation and organization of inanimate matter, than he Would 
to the salvation of innumerable millions of souls, which himself had 
created, " as the image of himself," is to offer an insult to his 
goodness and his justice. 

Now observe, reader, how the promulgation of this pretended 
salvation by a knowledge of, and a belief in Jesus Christ went on^ 
compared with the work of creation. 

In the first place, it took longer time to- make a child than to 
make the world, for nine months were passed away and totally 
lost in a state of pregnancy : which is more than forty times 
longer time than God employed in making the world, according 
to the Bible account. Secondly ; several years of Christ's life 
were lost in a state of human infancy. But the universe was in 
maturity the moment it existed. Thirdly ; Christ, as Luke aserts, 
was thirty years old before he began t<> preach what they call his 
mission. Millions of souls died in the mean time without know- 
ing it. Fourthly; it was above three hundred years from that 
time before the book called the New Testament was compiled 
into a written copy, before which time there was no such book. 
Fifthly ; it was above a thousand years after that, before it could 
be circulated ; because neither Jesus nor his apostles had know- 
ledge of, or were inspired with the art of printing : and, conse- 
quently, as the means for making it universally known did not 
exist, the means were not equal to the end, and, therefore, it is 
not the work of God. 

I will here subjoin the nineteenth Psalm, which is truly deisti- 
cal, to show how universally and instantaneously the works o! 



270 



EXAMINATION OP THE PROPHECIES. 



God make themselves known, compared with this pretended sal- 
vation by Jesus Christ. 

Psalm 19th. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and 
the firmament showeth his handy work — Day unto day uttereth 
speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge— There is no 
spe ech nor language where their voice is not heard - Their line is 
gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the 
world. In them hath he set a chamber tor the sun. Which is a 
bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong 
man to run a rare — his going forth is from the end of the heaven, 
and his circuit unto the ends of it, and there is nothing hid from 
the heat thereof." 

Now, had the news of salvation by Jesus Christ been inscribed 
on the face of the Sun and the Moon, in characters that all nations 
would have understood the whole earth had known it in twenty- 
four hours, and all nations would have believed it; whereas, 
though it is now almost two thousand years since, as they tell us, 
Christ came upon earth, not a twentieth part of the people of the 
earth know any thing of it, and among those who do, the wiser 
part do not believe it. 

I have now reader gone through all the passages called prophe- 
cies of Jesus Christ, and shown there is no such thing. 

I have examined the story told of Jesus Christ, and compared 
the several circumstances of it with that revelation, which, as Mid- 
dleton wisely says, God has made to us of his Power and Wisdom 
in the structure of the universe, and by which every thing ascrib- 
ed to him is to be tried. The result is, that the story of Christ 
has not one trait, either in its character, or in the means employed, 
that bears the least resemblance ?o the power and wisdom of God, 
as demonstrated in the creation of the universe. All the means 
are human means, slow, uncertain, and inadequate to the accom- 
plishment of the end proposed, and, therefore, the whole is a fabu- 
lous invention, an ! undeserving of credit. 

The priests of the present day, profess to believe it. They 
gain sheir living by it, and they exclaim against something they 
call infidelity. I will define what it is. He that believes in 

THE STORY OF CHRIST IS AN INFIDEL TO GoD. 

THOMAS PAINE, 



APPENDIX. 



CONTRADICTORY DOCTPJNI.3 IN THE 
NEW TESTAMENT, 

BETWEEN 

MATTHEW AND MARK. 

In the New Testament, Mark, chap. xvi. ver. 16, it is said 
et He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; he that be- 
iieveth not shall be damned." This is making salvation, or, in 
other words, the happiness of man after this life, to depend entire- 
ly on believing, or on what Christians call faith. 

But the 25th chapter of The Gospel according to Matthew 
makes Jesus Christ to preach a direct contrary doctrine to The 
Gospel according to Mark ; for it makes salvation, or the future 
happiness of man, to depend entirely on good ivorks ; and those 
good works are not works done to God, for he needs them not, 
but good works done to man. 

The passage referred to in Matthew is the account there given 
of what is called the last day, or the day of judgment, where the 
whole world is represented to be divided into two parts, the right- 
eous and the unrighteous, mataphorically called the sheep and the 
goats. 

To the one part called the righteous, or the sheep, it says, 
" Come ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for 
you from the beginning of the world — for I was an hungered and 
ye gave me meat — I was thirsty and ye gave me drink — I was a 
stranger and ye took me in — Naked and ye clothed me — I was 
sick and ye visited me — I was in prison and ye came unto me. 



272 



APPENDIX. 



" Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw 
we thee an hungered and fed thee, or thirsty and gave thee drink ? 
When saw we thee a stranger and took thee in, or naked and 
clothed thee ? Or when saw we thee sick and in prison, and came 
unto thee ? 

" And the king shall answer and say unto them, verily I say unto 
you in as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my 
brethren, ye have done it u .to me." 

Here is nothing about believing in Christ — nothing about that 
phantom of the imagination called Faith. The works here spo- 
ken of, are works of humanity and benevolence, or, in other words, 
an endeavour to make God's creation happy. Here is nothing 
about preaching and making long prayers, as if God must be dic- 
tated to by man ; nor about building churches and meetings, nor 
hiring priests to pray and preach in them. Here is nothing about 
predestination, that lust which some men have for damning one 
another. Here is nothing about baptism, whether by sprinkling 
or plunging, nor about any of those ceremonies for which the 
Christian church has been fighting, persecuting, and burning each 
other, ever since the Christian church began. 

If it be asked, why do not priests preach the doctrine contained 
in this chapter 1 The answer is easy ; — they are not fond of 
practising it themselves. It does not answer for their trade. 
They had rather get than give. Charity with them begins and 
ends at home. 

Had it been said, Come ye blessed, ye have been liberal in fay- 
ing the preachers of the word, ye have contributed largely towards 
building churches and meeting-houses, there is not a hired priest 
in Christendom but would have thundered it continually in the ears 
of his congregation. But as it is altogether on good works done 
to men, the priests pass over it in silence, and they will abuse me 
for bringing it into notice. 

THOMAS PAINE. 



MY 



PRIVATE THOUGHTS 

ON A 

FUTURE STATE. 

I have said, in the first part of the Age of Reason, that " / hope 
for happiness after ihis life.''' This hope is comfortable to me, 
and I presume not to go beyond the comfortable idea of hope, with 
respect to a future state. 

I consider myself in the hands of my Creator, and that he will 
dispose of me after this life consistently with his justice and good- 
ness. I leave al! these matters to him, as my Creator and friend, 
and I hold it to be presumption in man to make an article of faith 
as to what the Creator will dp with us hereafter. 

I do not believe because a man and a woman make a child, that 
it imposes on the Creator the unavoidable obligation of keeping 
the being so made, in eternal existence hereafter. It is in his 
power to do so, or not to do so, and it is not in our power to de- 
cide which he will do. 

The book called the New Testament, which I hold to be fabu- 
lous and have shown to be false, gives an account in the 25th 
chapter of Matthew, of what is there called the last day, or the day 
of judgment. The whole world, according to that account, is 
divided into two parts the righteous and the unrighteous, figurative- 
ly called the sheep and the goats. They are then to receive their 
sentence. To the one, figuratively called the sheep, it says, 
41 Come ye blessed of mv Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for 
you from the foundation of the world." To the other, figuratively 
called the goats, it says, " Depart from me, ye cursed, into ever- 
lasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." 

Now the case is, the world cannot be thus divided — the moral 
world, like the phvsical world, is composed of numerous degrees 
of character, running imperceptibly one into the other, in such a 

35 



271 



manner that no fixed point of division can be found in either* 
That point is no where, or is every where. The whole world 
might be divided into two parts numerically, but not as to moral 
character ; and, therefore, the metaphor of dividing them, as sheep 
and goats can be divide whose difference is marked by their ex« 
ternal figure, is absurd. All xheep are still sheep ; all goats are 
still y;oats ; it is their physical nature to be so. But one part of 
the world are not afl good alike, nor the other part all wicked alike. 
There are some exceedingly good ; others exceedingly wicked* 
There is another description of men who cannot be ranked with 
either the one or the other — they belong neither to the sheep nor 
the goats. 

My own opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in 
doing good, and endeavouring to make their fellow-mortals happy „ 
for this is the only way in which we can serve God, will ht happy 
hereafter : and that the very wicked will meet with some punish- 
ment. This is my opinion. It is consistent with my idea of 
God's justice, and with the reason that God has given me. 

THOMAS PAINE> 



EXTRACT FROM A REPLY 

TO THE 

BISHOP OF LLANDAFF. 



\This extract from Mr. Pain's reply to Watson, Bishop of LlandafF, was 
given by him, not long before his death, to Mrs. Palmer, widow of Eli] Pal- 
mer. He retained the work entire, and, therefore, must have transcribed this 
part, which was unusual for him to do. Probably he had discovered errors, 
which he corrected in the copy. Mrs. Palmer presented it to the editor of a 
periodical work, entitled the Theophilanthropist, published in New- York, in 
which it appeared in 1810.] 



GENESIS. 

The bishop says, " the oldest book in the world is Genesis." 
This is mere assertion ; he offers no proof of it, and I go to con- 
trovert it, and to show that the book of Job, which is not a Hebrew 
book, but is a book of the Gentiles, translated into Hebrew, is 
much older than the book of Genesis. 

The book of Genesis means the book of Generations ; to which 
are prefixed two chapters, the first and second, which contain two 
different cosmoganie*, that is, two different accounts of the creation 
of the world, written by different persons, as I have shown in the 
preceding part of this work.* 

The first cosmogany begins at the first verse of the first chap- 
ter, and ends at the end of the third verse of the second chapter ; 
for the adverbial conjunction thus, with which the second chapter 
begins, shows those three verses to belong to the first chapter. 
The second cosmogany begins at the fourth verse of the second 
chapter, and ends with that chapter. 

In the first cosmogany the name of God is used, without any 

* See Letter to Erskine, page 165. 



276 



REPLY TO THE BISHOP. 



epithet joined to it, and is repeated thirty-five times. In the second 

■•smogany it is always the Lord God, which is repeated eleven 
times. These two different styles of expression show these two 
chapters to be the work of two different persons, and the contra- 
dictions they contain, show they cannot be the work of one and the 
same person, as 1 have already shown. . 

The third chapter, in which the style of Lord God is continued 
in every instance, except in the supposed conversation between 
the woman and the serpent (for in every place in that chapter 
where the writer speaks, it is always the Lord God) shows this 
chapter to belong to the second cosmogany. 

This chapter gives an account of what is called the fall of man* 
which is no other than a fable borrowed from, and constructed 
upon the religion of Zoroaster, or the Persians, or the annual pro- 
gress of the sun through the twelve signs of the Zodiac. It is the 
fall of the year, the approach and evil of winter, announced by the 
ascension of the autumnal constellation of the serpent of the Zodi- 
ac, and not the moral fall of man that is the key of the allegory* 
and of the fable in Genesis borrowed from it. 

The fall of man in Genesis, is said to have been produced by 
eating a certain fruit, generally taken to be an apple. The fall of 
the year is the season for the gathering and eating the new apples 
of that year. The allegory, therefore, holds with respect to the 
fruit, which it would not have done had it been an early summer 
fruit. It holds also with respect to place. The tree is said to 
have been placed in the midst of the garden. But why in the 
midst of the garden more than in any other place 1 The situation 
of the allegory gives the answer to this question, which is, that 
the fall of the year, when apples an d other autumnal "fruits are ripe, 
and when days and nights are of equal length, is the mid-season 
between summer and winter. 

It holds also with respect to clothing, and the temperature of 
the air. It is said in Genesis, chap. iii. ver. 21. " Unto Adam 
and his wife did the Lord God make coats of shins and clothed 
them." But why are coats of skins mentioned 1 This cannot be 
understood as referring to any thing of the nature of moral evil. 
The solution of the allegory gives again the answer to this ques- 
tion, which is, that the evil of winter, which follows the fall of the 
year, fabulously called in Genesis the fall of man, makes warm 
clothing necessary. 



OF LLANDAFFi 



277 



But of these things I shall speak fully when I come in another 
part to treat of the ancient religion of the Persians, and compare it 
with the modern religion of the New Testament.* At present, I 
shall confine myself to the comparative antiquity of the books of 
Genesis and Job, taking, at the same time, whatever I may find in 
my way with respect to the fabulousness of the book of Genesis ; 
for if what is called the fall of man, in Genesis, be fabulous or alle- 
gorical, that which is called the redemption, in the New Testament, 
cannot be a fact. It is morally impossible, and impossible a! o in 
the nature of things, that moral ^ood can redeem physical evil. I 
return to the bishop. 

If Genesis be, as the bishop asserts, the oldest book in the 
world, and, consequently, the oldest and first written book of the 
Bible, and if the extraordinary things related in it, such as the cre- 
ation of the world in six days, the tree of life, and of good and 
evil, the story of Eve and the talking serpent, the fall of man and 
his being turned out of Paradise, were facts, or even believed by 
the Jews to be facts, they would be referred to as fundamental 
matters, and that very frequently, in the books of the Bible that 
were written by various authors afterwards ; whereas, there is not 
a book, chapter, or verse of the Bible, from the time Moses is 
said to have written the book of Genesis, to the book of Malachi, 
the last book in the Bible, including a space of more than a thou- 
sand years, in which there is any mention made of these things, 
or any of them, nor are they so much as alluded to. How will 
the bishop solve this difficulty, which stands as a circumstantial 
contradiction to his assertion ? 

There are but two ways of solving it : 

First, that the book of Genesis is not an ancient book : that it 
has been written by some (now) unknown person, after the return 
of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, about a thousand years 
after the time that Moses is said to have lived, and put as a pre- 
face or introduction to th- other books, when they were formed 
into a cannon in the time of the second temple, and, therefore, not 
having existed before that time, none of, these things mentioned 
in it could be referred to in those books. 

Secondly, that admitting Genesis to have been written by 
Moses, the Jews did not believe the things stated in it to he true* 
and, therefore as they could not refer to them as facts, they woukl 
* Not published. 



.278 REPLY TO THE BISHOP 

not refer to them as fables. The first of these solutions goes 
against the antiquity of the book, and the second against its au- 
thenticity, and the bishop may take which he pleases. 

But, be the author of Genesis whoever he may, there is abun* 
dant evidence to show, as well from the early Christian writers, as 
from the Jews themselves, that the things stated in that book were 
not believed to be facts. Why they have been believed as facts 
since that time, when better and fuller knowledge existed on the 
case, than is known now, can be accounted for only on the impo- 
sition of priestcraft. 

Augustine, one of the early champions of the Christian church, 
acknowledges in his City of God, that the adventure of Eve and 
the serpent, and the account of Paradise, were generally consider- 
ed as fiction, or allegory. He regards them as allegory himself, 
without attempting to give any explanation, but he supposes that 
a better explanation might be found than those that had been 
offered. 

Origen, another early champion of the church, says, " What 
man of good sense can ever persuade himself that there were a 
first, a second, and a third day, and that each of these days had a 
night when there were yet neither sun, moon, nor stars. What 
man can be stupid enough to believe that God acting the part of 
a gardener, had planted a garden in the east, that the tree of life 
was a real tree, and that its fruit had the virtue of making those 
who eat of it live for ever 1" 

Marmonides, one of the most learned and celebrated of the 
Jewish Rabbins, who lived in the eleventh century (about seven 
or eight hundred years ago) and to whom the bishop refers in his 
answer to me, is very explicit, in his book entitled JWore Neba- 
cfpim, upon the non-reality of the things stated in the account of 
the Creation in the book of Genesis. 

" We ought not (says he) to understand, nor take according to 
the letter, that which is written in the book of the Creation, nor to 
have the same ideas of it with common men ; otherwise, our an- 
cient sages would not have recommended, with so much care, to 
conceal the sense of it, and not to raise the allegorical veil which 
envelopes the truths it contains. The book of Genesis, taken ac- 
cording to the letter, gives the most absurd and the most extrava- 
gant ideas of the Divinity. Whoever shall find out the sense of 
it, ought to restrain himself from divulging it. It is a maxim 



OF LLAXDAfT. 



279 



which all our sages repeat, and above all with respect to the work 
of six days. It may happen that some one, with the aid he may 
borrow from others, may hit upon the meaning of it. In that case 
he ought to impose silence upon himself; or if he speak of it, he 
ought to speak obscurely, and in an enigmatical manner, as I do 
myself, leaving the rest to be found out by those who can under* 
stand." 

This is, certainlv, a very extraordinary declaration of Marmon- 
ides, taking all the parts of it. 

First, he declares, that the account of the Creation in the book 
of Genesis is not a fact ; that to believe it to be a fact, gives the 
most absurd and the most extravagant ideas of the Divinity. 

Secondly, that it is an allegory. 

Thirdly, that the allegory has a concealed secret. 

Fourthly, that whoever can find the secret ought not to tell it. 

It is this last part that is the most extraordinary. Why all this 
care of the Jewish Rabbins, to prevent what they call the conceal- 
ed meaning, or the secret, from being known, and, if known, to 
prevent any of their people from telling it? It certainly must be 
something which the Jewish nation are afraid or ashamed the world 
should know. It must be something personal to them as a peo- 
ple, and not a secret of a divine nature, which the more it is known, 
the more it increases the glory of the Creator, and the gratitude 
and happiness of man. It is not God's secret, but their own, they 
are keeping. I go to unveil the secret. 

The case is, the Jews have stolen their cosmogany, that is, 
their account of the Creation, from the cosmogany of the Persians, 
contained in the book of Zoroaster, the Persian lawgiver, and 
brought it with them when they returned from captivity by the be- 
nevolence of Cyrus, King of Persia ; for it is evident, from the 
silence of all the books of the Bible upon the subject of the Crea- 
tion, that the Jews had no cosmogany before that time. If they 
had a cosmogany from the time of Moses, some of their judges 
who governed during more than four hundred years, or of their 
kings, the Davids and Solomons of their day, who governed nearly 
fiv hundred years, or of their prophets and psalmists, who lived 
in the mean time, would have mentioned it. It would, either as 
fact or fable, have been the grandest of all subjects for a psalm. 
It would have suited to a tittle the ranting, poetical genius of 
Isaiah, or served as a cordial to the gloomy Jeremiah. But not 



REPLY TO THE BISHOP 



one word nor even a whisper, does any of the Bible authors give 
upon the subject. 

To conceal the theft, the Rabbins of the second temple have 
published Genesis as a book of Moses, and have enjoined secresy 
to all their people, who, by travelling, or otherwise, might happen to 
discover from whence the cosmogany was borrowed, not to tell it. 
The evidence of circumstances is often unanswerable, and there 
is no other than this which I have given, that goes to the whole of 
the case, and this does. 

Diogenes Laertius, an ancient and respectable author, whom 
the Bishop, in his answer to me. quotes on another occasion, has 
a passage that corresponds with the solution here given. In speak- 
ing of the religion of the Persians, as promulgated by their priests 
or magi, he says, the Jewish Rabbins were the successors of their 
doctrine. Having thus spoken on the plagarism, and on the non- 
reality of the book of Genesis, I will give some additional evi- 
dence that Moses is not the author of that book. 

Eben-Ezra. a celebrated Je\\i>h author, who lived about seven 
hundred years ago, and whom the bishop allows to have been a 
man of great erudition, has made a great many observations, too 
numerous to be repeated here, to show that Moses was not. and 
could not be, the author of the book of Genesis, nor any of the five 
books that bear his name. 

Spinosa, another learned Jew, who lived about a hundred and 
thirty years ago, recites, in his treatise on the ceremonies of the 
Jews, ancient and modern, the observations of Eben-Fzra, to 
which he adds many others, to show that Moses is not the author 
of these books. He also says, and -hows his reasons for saying 
it, that the Bible did not exist as a book, till the time of the Mac- 
cabees, which was more than a hundred years after the return of 
the Jews from the Babylonian captivity. 

In the second part of the Age of Reason. I have, among other 
things, referred to nine verses m the 36th chapter of Genesis, be- 
ginning at the 31st verse, " These are the kings that reigned in 
Edom, before there reisned any king over the children of Israel/' 
which it is impossible could have been written by Moses, or in the 
time of Moses, and could not have been written till after the Jew 
kings began to reign in Israel, which was not till several hundred 
years after the time of Moses. 

The bishop allows this, and says ;t I think you say true." But 



OF LLANDAFF* 



281 



he then quibbles, and says, that a small addition to a book does not 
destroy either the genuineness or authenticity of the whole book. 
This is priestcraft. These verses do not stand in the book as an 
addition to it, but as making a part of the whole book, and which 
it is impossible that Moses could write. The bishop would reject 
the antiquity of any other book if it could be proved from the 
words of the book itself that a part of it could not have been writ- 
ten till several hundred years after the reputed author of it was 
dead. He would call such a book a forgery. I am authorised, 
therefore, to call the book of Genesis a forgery. 

Combining, then, all the foregoing circumstances together re- 
specting the antiquity and authenticity of the book of Genesis, a 
conclusion will naturally follow therefrom ; those circumstances 
are, 

First, that certain parts of the book cannot possibly have been 
written by Moses, and that the other parts carry no evidence of 
having been written by him. 

Secondly, the universal silence of all the following books of the 
Bible, for about a thousand years, upon the extraordinary things 
spoken of in Genesis, such as the creation of the world in six days 
— the garden of F.den — the tree of knowledge — the tree of life — 
the story of Eve and the serpent — the fall of man, and his being 
turned out of this fine garden, together with Noah's flood, and the 
tower of Babel. 

Thirdly, the silence of all the books of the Bible upon even the 
name of Moses, from the book of Joshua until the second book of 
Kings, which was not written till after the captivity, for it gives an 
account of the captivity, a period of about a thousand years. 
Strange that a man who is proclaimed as the historian of the Cre- 
ation, the privy-counsellor and confident of the Almighty — the 
legislator of the Jewish nation, and the founder of its religion ; 
strange, I say, that even the riame of such a man should not find 
a place in their bocks for a thousand years, if they kmw or believed 
any thing about him,' or the books he is said to have written. 

Fourthly, the opinion of some of the most celebrated of the Jew- 
ish commentators, that Moses is not the author of the book of 
Genesis, founded on the reasons given for that opinion. 

Fifthly, the opinion of the early Christian writers, and of the 
great champion of Jewish literature, Marmonides, that the book 
of Genesis is not a book of facts. 

36 



282 



XI E PLY TO THE BISHOP 



Sixthly, the silence imposed by ail the Jewish Rabbins, and by 
Marmonides himself, upon the Jewish nation, not to speak of any 
thing they may happen to know, or discover, respecting the cos- 
mogany (or creation of the world) in the book of Genesis. 
From these circumstances the following conclusions offer- 
First, that the book of Genesis is not a book of facts. 
Secondly, that as no mention is made throughout the Bible of 
any of the extraordinary things related in Genesis, that it has not 
been written till after the other books were written, and put as a 
preface to the Bible. Every one knows that a preface to a book, 
though it stands first, is the last written. 

Thirdly, that the silence imposed by all the Jewish Rabbins? 
and by Marmonides upon the Jewish nation, to keep silence upon 
every thing related in their cosmogany, evinces a secret, they are 
not willing should be known. The secret, therefore, explains itself 
to be, that when the Jews were in captivity in Babylon and 
Persia, they became acquainted with the cosmogany of the 
Persians, as registered in the Zend-Avesta, of Zoroaster, the 
Persian lawgiver, which, after their return from captivity, they 
manufactered and modelled as their own, and anti-dated it by giv- 
ing to it the name of Moses. The case admits of no other ex- 
planation. From all which it appears that the book of Genesis r 
instead of being the oldest book in the icorld, as the bishop calls 
it, has been the last written book of the Bible, and that the cos- 
mogany it contains, has been manufactured. 

On the Names in the Book of Genesis. 

Every thing in Genesis serves as evidence or symptom, that the 
book has been composed in some late period of the Jewish nation. 
Even the names mentioned in it serve to this purpose. 

Nothing is more common or more natural, than to name the 
children of succeeding generations, after the names of those who 
had been celebrated in some former generation. This holds good 
with respect to all the people, and all the histories we know of, 
and it does not hold good with the Bible. There must be some 
cause for this. 

This book of Genesis tells us of a man whom it calls Adam, 
and of his sons Abel and Seth ; of Enoch, who lived 365 years (it 
is exactly the number of days in a year,) and that then God took 



OP LLANDAFF. 



283 



. xt has the appearance of being taken from some allegory 
of the Gentiles on the commencement and termination of the 
year, by the progress of the sun through the twelve signs of the 
Zodiac, on which the allegorical religion of the Gentiles was 
founded. 

It tells us of Methuselah who lived 969 years, and of a long 
train of other names in the fifth chapter. It then passes on to a 
man whom it cails Noah, and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet : 
then to Lot, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and his sons, with which 
the book of Genesis finishes. 

All these, according to the account given in that book, were the 
most extraordinary and celebrated of men. They were, more- 
over, heads of families. Adam was the father of the world i 
Enoch, for his righteousness, was taken up to heaven. Methuse- 
lah lived to almost a thousand years. He was the son of Enoch, 
the man of 365, the number of days in a year. It has the ap- 
pearance of being the continuation of an allegory on the 365 days 
of a year, and its abundant productions. Noah was selected from 
all the world to be preserved when it was drowned, and became 
the second father of the world. Abraham was the father of the 
faithful multitude. Isaac and Jacob were the inheritors of his 
fame, and the last was the father of the twelve tribes. 

Now, if these very wonderful men and their names, and the 
book that records them, had been known by the Jews, before the 
Babylonian captivity, those names would have been as common 
among the Jews before that period as they have been since. We 
now hear of thousands of Abrahams, Isaacs, and Jacobs among 
the Jews, but there were none of that name before the Babylonian 
captivity. The Bible does not mention one, though from the time 
that Abraham is said to have lived, to the time of the Babylonian 
captivity, is about 1400 years. 

How is it to be accounted for, that there have been so many 
thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Jews of the 
names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob since that period, and 
not. one before ? It can be accounted for but one way, which 
is, that before the Babylonian captivity, the Jews had no such 
books as Genesis, nor knew any thing of the names and persons 
it mentions, nor of the things it relates, and that the stories in 
it have been manufactured since that time. From the Arabic 



284 



REPLY TO THE BISHOP 



name Ibrahim (which is the manner the Turks write that name 
to this day) the Jews have most probably manufactured their 
Abraham. 

I will advance my observations a point further, and speak of the 
names of Moses and Aaron, mentioned for the first time in the 
book of Exodus. There are now, and have continued to be from 
the time of the Babylonian captivity, or soon after it 5 thousands 
of Jews of the names of Closes and Aaron, and we read not of 
any of that name before that time. The Bible does not mention 
one. The direct inference from this is, that the Jews knew of no 
such book as Exodus, before the Babylonian captivity. In fact, 
that it did not exist before that time, and that it is only since the 
book has been invented, that the names of Moses and Aaron have 
been common among- the Jews. 

It is applicable to the purpose, to observe, that the picturesque 
work, called Mosaic-work, spelled the same as you would say the 
Mosaic account of the creation, is not derived from the word 
Moses but from Muses, (the Muses,) because of the variegated 
and picturesque pavement in the temples dedicated to the Muses. 
This carries a strong implication that the name Moses is drawn 
from the same source, and that he is not a real but an allegorical 
person, as Marmonides describes what is called the Mosaic ac- 
count of the Creation to be. 

I will go a point still further. The Jews now know the book 
of Genesis, and the names of all the persons mentioned in the first 
ten chapters of that book, from Adam to Noah : yet we do not 
hear (I speak for myself) of any Jew of the present day, of the 
name of Adam, Abel, Seth, Enoch, Methuselah, Noah,* Shem ¥ 
Ham, or Japhet, (names mentioned in the first ten chapters,) though 
these were, according to the account in that book, the most ex- 
traordinary of all the names that make up the catalogue of 
the Jewish chronology. 

The names the Jews now adopt, are those that are mentioned 
in Genesis after the tenth chapter, as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, &c. 
How then does it happen, that they do not adopt the names found 
in the first ten chapters t Here is evidently a line of division 
drawn between the first ten chapters of Genesis, and the remain- 
ing chapters, with respect to the adoption of names. There 



Noah is an exception ; there are of that name among the Jew?. — Editor- 



OF LLANDAFF. 285 

must be some cause for this, and I go to offer a solution of the 
problem. 

The reader will recollect the quotation I have already made 
from the Jewish Rabbin, Marmonides, wherein he says, " We 
ought not to understand nor to take according to the letter that 
which is written in the book of the Creation. It is a maxim (says 
he) which all our sages repeat above all, with respect to the work 
of six days." 

The qualifying expression above all, implies there are other 
parts of the book, though not so important, that ought not to be 
understood or taken according to the letter, and as the Jews do 
not adopt the names mentioned in the first ten. chapters, it appears 
evident those chapters are included in. the injunction not to take 
them in a literal sense, or according to the letter ; from which it 
follows, that the persons or characters mentioned in the first ten 
chapters, as Adam, Abel, Seth, Enoch, Methuselah, and so on to 
Noah, are not real but fictitious or allegorical persons, and, there- 
fore, the Jews do not adopt their names into their families. If they 
affixed the same idea of reality to them as they do to those that 
follow after the tenth chapter, the names of Adam, Abel, Seth, &c. 
would be as common among the Jews of the present day, as are 
those of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Aaron. 

In the superstition they have been in, scarcely a Jew family 
would have been without an Enoch, as a presage of his going to 
heaven as ambassador for the whole family. Every mother who 
wished that the days of her son might be long- in the land would 
call him Methuselah ; and all the Jews that might have to traverse 
the ocean would be named Noah, as a charm against shipwreck 
and drowning. 

This is domestic evidence against the book of Genesis, which 
joined to the -several kinds of evidence before recited, show the 
book of Genesis not to be older than the Babylonian captivity, 
and to be fictitious. I proceed to fix the character and antiquity 
of the book of 

JOB. 

The book of Job has not the least appearance of being a book 
of the Jews, and though printed among the books of the Bible ? 
does not belong to it. There is no reference in it to any Jewish 



286 



REPLY TO THE BISHOP 



law or ceremony. On the contrary, all the internal evidence it 
contains shows it to be a book of the Gentiles, either of Persia or 
Chaldea. 

The name of Job does hot appear to be a Jewish name. 
There is no Jew of that name in any of the books of the Bible, 
neither is there now that I ever heard of. The country where Job 
is said or supposed to have lived, or rather where the scene of the 
drama is laid, is called Uz, and there was no place of that name 
ever belonging to the Jews. If Uz is the same as Ur, it was in 
Chaldea, the country of the Gentiles. 

The Jews can give no account how they came by this book, nor 
who was the author, nor the time when it was written. Origen, in 
his work against Celsus, (in the first ages of the Christian church,) 
says, that the book of Job is older them JWoses. Eben-Ezra, the 
Jewish commentator, whom (as I have before said) the bishop al- 
lows to have been a man of great erudition, and who certainly 
understood his own language, says, that the book of Job has 
been translated from another language into Hebrew. Spinosa, 
another Jewish commentator of great learning, confirms the 
opinion of Eben-Ezra, and says moreover, u Je crois que Job 
ctait Gentie ;* I believe that Job was a Gentile. 

The bishop, (in his answer to me,) says, " that the structure of 
the whole book of Job, in whatever light of history or drama it be 
considered, is founded on the belief that prevailed with the Per- 
sians and Chaldeans, and other Gentile nations, of a good and 
an evil spirit." 

In speaking of the good and evil spirit of the Persians, the 
bishop writes them Arimanius and Oromasdes. I will not dis- 
pute about the orthography, because I know that translated names 
are differently spelled in different languages. But he has never- 
theless made a capital error. He has put the Devil first ; for 
Arimanius, or, as it is more generally written, Ahriman, is the 
tvil spirit, and OromUsdes or Ormusd the good spirit. He has 
made the same mistake in the same paragraph, in speaking of the 
good and evil spirit of the ancient Egyptians Osiris and Typho, 
he puts Typho before Osiris. The error is just the same as if the 
bishop in writing about the Christian religion, or in preaching a 
sermon, were to say the Devil and God. A priest ought to know 

* Spinosa on the ceremonies of the Jews, page 296, published in French at 
Amsterdam, 1678. ' 



of llandafi. 287 

Lis own trade better. We agree, however, about the structure of 
the book of Job, that it is Gentile. I have said in the second part 
of the Age of Reason, and given my reasons for it, that the 
drama of it is not Hebrews 

From the testimonies I have cited, that of Origen, who, about 
fourteen hundred years ago, said that the book of Job was more 
ancient than Moses, that of Eben-Ezra, who, in his commentary 
on Job, says, it has been translated from another language (and 
consequently from a Gentile language) into Hebrew ; that of 
Spinosa, who not only says the same thing, but that the author of 
it was a Gentile ; and that of the bishop, who says that the 
structure of the whole book is Gentile. It follows then, in the 
first place, that the book of Job is not a book of the Jews 
originally. 

Then, in order to determine to what people or nation any book 
of religion belongs, we must compare it with the leading dogmas 
and precepts of that people or nation ; and, therefore, upon the 
bishop's own construction, the book of Job. belongs either to the 
ancient Persians, the Chaldeans, or the Egyptians ; because the 
structure of it is consistent with the dogma they held, that of 
a good and evil spirit, called in Job, God and Satan, existing as 
distinct and separate beings, and it is not consistent with any 
dogma of the Jews. 

The belief of a good and. an evil spirit, existing as distinct and 
separate beings, is not a dogma to be found in any of the books of 
the Bible. It is not till we come to the New Testament that we 
hear of any such dogma. There the person called the Son of 
God, holds conversation with Satan on a mountain, as familiarly 
as is represented in the drama of Job. Consequently the bishop 
cannot say, in this respect, tnat the New Testament is founded 
upon the Old. According to the Old, the God of the Jews was 
the God of every thing. All good and evil came from him. Ac- 
cording to Exodus it was God, and not the Devil, that hardened 
Pharoalvs heart. According to the book of Samuel, it was an 
evil spirit from God that troubled Saul. And Ezekiel makes God 
to say, in speaking of the Jews, " I gave them the statutes that 
were not good, and judgments hij which they should not'liveS* 
The Bible describes the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in 
such a contradictory manner, and under such a two fold character., 
there would be no knowing when he was in earnest and when in 



288 



REPLY TO THE BISHOP 



irony ; when to believe, and when not. As to the precepts, prin- 
ciples, and maxims, in the book of Job, they show that the people, 
abusively called the heathen in the books of the Jews, had the 
most sublime ideas of the Creator, and the most exalted devotion- 
al morality. Tt was the Jews who dishonoured God. It was the 
Gentiles who glorified him. As to the fabulous personifications 
introduced by the Greek and Latin poets, it was a corruption of 
the ancient religion of the Gentiles, which consisted in the adora- 
tion of a first cause of the works of the creation, in which 
the sun was the great visible agent. 

It appears to have been a religion of gratitude and adoration, 
and not of prayer and discontented solicitation. In Job we find 
adoration and submission, but not prayer. Even the ten com- 
ma: sdments enjoin not prayer. Prayer has been added to devo- 
tion, by the church of Rome, as the instrument of fees and per- 
quisites. All prayers by the priests of the Christian church, 
whether public or private, must be paid for. It may be right, 
individually, to pray for virtues, or mental instruction, but not for 
things. It is an attempt to dictate to the Almighty in the govern- 
ment of the world. But to return to the book of Job. 

As the book of Job decides itself to be a book of the Gentiles, 
the next thing is to find out to what particular nation it belongs, 
and lastly, what is its antiquity.. 

As a composition, it is sublime, beautiful, and scientific : full of 
sentiment, and abounding in grand metaphorical description. As 
a drama, it is regular. The dramatis' persons, the persons per- 
forming the several parts, are regularly introduced, and speak 
without interruption or confusion. The scene, as I have before 
said, is laid in the country of the Gentiles, and the unities, though 
not always necessary in a drama, ate observed here as strictly as 
the subject would admit. 

In the last act, where the Almighty is introduced as speaking 
from the whirlwind, to decide the controversy between Job and 
his friends, it is an idea as grand as poetical imagination can con- 
ceive'. What follows of Job's future prosperity does not belong 
to it as a drama. It is an epilogue of the writer, as the first verses 
of the first chapter, which gave an account of Job, his country 
and his riches, are the prologue. 

The book carries the appearance of being the work of some of 
the Persian Magi, not only because the structure of it corresponds 



OF LLANDAFF. 289 

to the dogmas of the religion of those people, as founded by Zo- 
roaster, but from the astronomical references in it to the constel- 
lations of the zodiac and other objects in the heavens, of which the 
sun, in their religion called Mithra, was the chief.' Job, in des- 
cribing the power of God, (Job ix. v, 27,) says, "Who cornmand- 
eth the sun, and .t riseth not, and sealeth up the stars — who alone 
spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea 
— who maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of 
the south." All this astronomical allusion is consistent with the 
religion of the Persians. 

Establishing then the book of Job, as the work of some of the 
Persian, or Eastern Magi, the case naturally follows, that when the 
Jews returned from captivity, by the permission of Cyrus, king of 
Persia ; they brought this book with them : had it translated into 
Hebrew, and put into their scriptural canons, whirh w;-re not form- 
ed till after their return. This will account for the name of Job 
being mentioned in Kzekiel, (Ezekiel, chap. xiv. v. 14,) who was 
one of the captives, and also for its not being mentioned in any 
book said or supposed to have been written before the captivity. 

Among the astronomical allusions in the book, there is one 
which serves to fix its antiquity. It is that where God is made to 
say to Job, in the style of reprimand, " Canst thou bind the sweet 
influences of Pleiades.'' 1 (Chap, xxxviii. ver. 31.) As the ex- 
planation of this depends upon astronomical calculation, I will, for 
the sake of those who would not otherwise understand it, endeav- 
our to explain it as clearly as the subject will admit. 

The Pleiades are a cluster of pale, milky stars, about the size of 
a man's hand, in the constellation Taurus, or in English, the Bull. 
It is one of the constellations of the zodiac, of which there are 
twelve, answering to the twelve months of the year. The Pleiades 
are visible in the winter nights, but not in the summer nights, be- 
ing then below the horizon. 

The zodiac is an imaginary belt or circle in the heavens, eigh- 
teen degrees broad, in which the sun apparently makes his annual 
course, and in which all the planets move. When the sun appears 
to our view to be between us and the group of stars forming such 
or such a constellation, he is said to be in that constellation. Con- 
sequently the constellation he appears to be in, in the summer, are 
directly opposite to those he appeared in in the winter, and the 
same with respect to spring and autumn. 

37 



HEF1Y TO' THE BISHOF 



The zodiac, besides being divided into twelve constellations, m 
also, like every other circle, great or small, divided into 360 equal 
parts, called degrees ; consequently each constellation contains 
30 degrees. The constellations of the zodiac are generally called 
signs, to distinguish them from the constellations that are placed 
out of the zodiac t and this is the name I shall now use. 

The precession of the equinoxes is the part most difficult to ex- 
plain, and it is on this that the explanation chiefly depends. 

The equinoxes correspond to the two seasons of the year wfcei& 
he sun makes equal day and night. 



The following is a disconnected part of the same work ? and is bow (1824); 

first published. 



SABBATH. OR SUNDAY. 

The seventh day, or more properly speaking the period of sevens 
days, was originally a numerical division of time and nothings 
more ; and had the bishop been acquainted with the history of as- 
tronomy, he would have known this. The annual revolution of the 
©arth makes what we call a year. 

The year is artificially divided into "months, the months into 
weeks of seven days, the days into hours, &c. The period of 
seven days, like any other of the artificial divisions of the year, is 
only a fractional part thereof, contrived for the convenience of 
countries. 

It is ignorance, imposition, and priest-craft, that have called it 
otherwise. They might as well talk of the Lord's month, of the 
Lord's week, of the Lord's hour, as of the Lord's day. All time 
is his, and no part of it is more holy or more sacred than another. 
It is, however, necessary to the trade of a priest, that he should 
preach up a distinction of days. 

Before the science of astronomy was studied and carried to the 
degree of eminence to Which it was by the Egyptians and Chalde- 
ans, the people of those times had no other helps, than what com - 



OP LLANDAFF. 



291 



WfM observation of the very visible changes of the sun and moon 
afforded, to enable them to keep an account of the progress of 
time. As far as history establishes the point, the Egyptians were 
the rirst people who divided the year into twelve months. Hero- 
dotus, who lived above two thousand two hundred years ago, and 
is the most ancient historian whose works have reached our time, 
says, they did this by the knowledge they had of the Mars. As to 
the Jews, there is not one single improvement in any science or 
in any scientific art, that they ever produced. They were the 
most ignorant of all the illiterate world. If the word of the Lord 
had come to them, as they pretend, and as the bishop professes to 
believe, and that they were to be the harbingers of it to the rest of 
the world ; the Lord would have taught them the use of letters, and 
the art of printing ; for without the means of communicating the 
word, it could not be communicated ; whereas letters were the in- 
vention of the Gentile world ; and printing of the modern world. 
But to return to my subject — 

Before the helps which the science of astronomy afforded, the 
people as before said, had no other, whereby to keep an account 
of the progress of time, than what the common and very visible 
changes of the sun and moon afforded. They saw that a great 
number of days made a year, but the account of them was too tedi- 
ous, and too difficult to be kept numerically, from one to three 
hundred and sixty-rive ; neither did they know the true time of a 
solar year. It, therefore, became necessary, for the purpose of 
marking the progress of days, to put them into small parcels, such 
as are now called weeks ; and which consisted as they now do of 
seven days. By this means the memory was assisted as it is with 
us at this day ; for we do not say of any thing that is past, that it 
was fifty, sixty, or seventy days ago, but that it Mas so many 
weeks, or, if longer time, so many months. It is impossible to 
keep an account of time without helps of this kind. 

Julian Scaliger, the inventer of the Julian period of 7,980 years, 
produced by multiplying the cycle of the moon, the cycle of the 
sun, and the years of an indiction, 19, 28, 15, into each other ; 
says, that the custom of reckoning by periods of seven days was 
used by the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Hebrews, the people of 
India, the Arabs, and by all the nations of the east. 
• In addition to what Scaliger says, it is evident that in Britain, in 
Germany, and the north of Europe, they reckoned by periods of 



292 



REPLY T© THE BISHOP 



seven days, long before the book called the bible, was known in 
those parts ; and, consequently, that they did not take that mode of 
reckoning from any thing written in that book. 

That they reckoned by periods of seven days is evident from 
their having seven names and no more for the several days ; and 
which have not the most distant relation to any thing in the book of 
Genesis, or to that which is called the fourth commandment. 

Those names are still retained in England, with no other altera- 
tion than what has been produced by moulding the Saxon and Da- 
nish languages into modern English. 

1. Sun-day from Swine the sun, and dag, day, Saxon. Sondag, 
Danish- The day dedicated to the sun. 

2. Monday, that is, moonday, from JSlona, the moon, Saxon. 
JHoano, Danish. Day dedicated to the moon. 

3. Tuesday, that is Tuis-co's-dau. The day dedicated to the 
Idol Tuisca. 

4. Wednes-day, that is Woden's-day. The day dedicated to 
Woden, the mars of the Germans. 

5. Thursday, that is, Thor's-day dedicated to the Idol TJior. 

6. Friday, that is Frigtfs-day. The day dedicated to Friga* 
the Venus of the Saxons. 

Saturday from Seaten (Saturn) an Idol of the Saxons ; one of 
the emblems representing time, which continually terminates and 
renews itself: The last dav of the period of seven days. When 
we see a certain mode of reckoning general among nations totally 
unconnected, differing from each other in religion and in govern- 
ment, and some of them unknown to each other, we may be certain 
that it arises from some natural and common cause, prevail- 
ing alike over all, and which strikes every one in the same manner. 
Thus all nations have reckoned arithmetically by tens, because the 
people of all nations have ten fingers, if they had more or less 
than ten, the mode of arithmetical reckoning would have followed 
that number, for the ringers are a natural numeration table to all 
the world. I now come to show why the period of seven days 
is so generally adopted. 

Though the sun is the great luminary of the world, and the ani- 
mating cause of all the fruits of the earth, the moon by renewing 
herself more than twelve times oftener than the sun, which does 
it but once a year, served the rustic world as a natural almanac, 
as the fingers served it for a numeration table. All the world could 



OV I.LANHAFF. 293 

see the niaon, her changes, and her monthly revolutions ; and their 
mode of reckoning time, was accommodated as nearly as could 
possibly be done in round numbers, to agree with the changes of 
that planet, their natural almanac. 

The moon performs her natural revolution round the- earth in 
twenty-nine days and a half. She goes from a new moon to a half 
moon, to a full moon, to a half moon gibbous or convex, and then 
to a new moon again. Each of these changes is performed in 
seven days and nine hours; but seven day-; is the nearest division 
in round numbers that could be taken ; and this was sufficient to 
suggest the universal custom of reckoning by periods of seven 
days, since it is impossible to reckon time without some stated 
period. 

How the odd hours could be disposed of without interfering 
with the regular periods of seven, days, in case the ancients recom- 
menced a new Septenary period with every new moon, required no 
more difficulty than it did to regulate the Egyptian Calender after- 
wards of twelve months of thirty days each, or the odd hour in the 
Julian Calender, or the odd days and hours in the French Calen- 
dar. In all cases it is done by the addition of complementary 
days ; and it can be done in no otherwise. 

The bishop knows that as the Solar year does not end at the 
termination of what we call a day, but runs some hours into the 
next day, as the quarters of the Moon runs some hours beyond 
seven days ; that it is impossible to give the year any fixed num- 
ber of days, that will not in course of years become wrong, and 
make a complimentary time necessary to keep the nominal year 
parallel with the solar year. The same must have been the case 
with those who regulated time formerly by lunar revolutions. 
They would have to add three days to every second moon, or in 
that proportion, in order to make the new moon and the new 
week commence together like the nominal year and the solar year 

Diodorus of Sicily, who, as before said, lived before Christ was 
born, in giving an account of times much anterior to his own, 
♦ speaks of years, of three months, of four months, and of six months,. 
These could be of no other than years composed of lunar revolu- 
tions, and, therefore, to bring the several periods of seven days, to 
agree with such years there must have been complementary days. 

The moon was the first almanac the world knew ; and the only 
©ne which the face of the heavens afforded to common spectators, 



2§4 REPLY TO THE EI3H0P 

Her changes and her revolutions have entered into all the Calen- 
ders that have been known in the known world. 

The division of the year into twelve months, which, as before 
shown, was first done'by the Egyptians, though arranged with as- 
tronomical knowledge, had reference to the twelve moons, or more 
properly speaking, to the twelve lunar revolutions that appear in 
the space of a solar year ; as the period of seven days had refer- 
ence to one revolution of the moon. The feasts of the Jews were, 
and those of the Christian church still are, regulated by the moon. 
The Jews observed the feasts of the new moon and full moon, and, 
therefore, the period of seven days was necessary to them. 

All the feasts of the Christian church are regulated by the moon. 
That called Easter governs all the rest, and the moon governs 
Easter. It is always the first Sunday after the first full moon 
that happens after the vernal Equinox, or 21st of March. 

In proportion as the science of astronomy was studied and im- 
proved by the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and the solar year regu- 
lated by astronomical observations, the custom of reckoning by 
lunar revolutions became of less use-, and in time discontinued. 
But such is the harmony of all parts of the machinery of the 
universe, that a calculation made from the motion of one part will 
correspond with the motion of some other. 

The period of seven days deduced from the revolution of the 
moon round the earth, corresponded nearer than any other period 
of days would do to the revolution of the earth round the sun. 
Fifty-two periods of seven days make 364, which is within one 
day and some odd hours of a solar year ; and there is no other pe- 
riodical number that will do the same, till we corne to the number 
thirteen, which is too great for common use, and the numbers before 
seven are too small. The custom, therefore, of reckoning by 
periods of seven days, as best suited to the revolution of the 
moon, applied with equal convenience to the solar year, and be- 
came united with it. But the decimal division of time, as regulated 
by the French Calendar, is superior to every other method. 

There is no part of the Bible that is supposed to have been writ- 
ten by persons who lived before the time of Josiah, (which was a 
thousand years after the time of Moses,) that mentions any thing 
about the sabbath as a day consecrated to that which is called the 
fourth commandment, or that the Jews kept any such day. Had 
any such day been kept, during the thousand years of which I am 



Vt L LA NDAFF. 



295 



speaking, it certainly would have been mentioned frequently ; and 
that it should never be mentioned, is strong:, presumptive, and cir- 
cumstantial evidence that no such day was kept. But mention is 
often made of the feasts of the new-moon, and of the full-moon ; 
for the Jews, as before shown, worshipped the moon ; and the 
word sabbath was applied by the Jews to the feasts of that planet, 
and to those of their other deities. It is said in Hosea, chap. 2, 
verse 11, in speaking of the Jewish nation, " And I will cause all 
her mirth to cease, her feast-days, her new-moons, and her sab- 
baths, and all her solemn feasts." Nobody will be so foolish as 
to contend that the sabbalhs here spoken of are Mosaic sabbaths. 
The construction of the verse implies they are lunar sabbaths, or 
sabbaths of the moon. It ought also to be observed that Hosea 
lived in the time of Ahaz and Hezekiah, about seventy years before 
the time- of Josiah, when the law called the law of Moses is said 
to have been found ; and, consequently, the, sabbaths that Hosea 
speaks of are sabbaths of the Idolatry. 

When those priestly reformers, (impostors I should call them,) 
Hilkiah, Ezra, and Nehemiah, began to produce books under the 
name of the books of Moses, they found the word sabbath in use : 
and as to the period of seven days, it is, like numbering arithmeti- 
cally by tens, from time immemorial. But having found them in 
use, they continued to make them serve to the support of their 
new imposition. They trumped up a story of the creation being 
made in six days, and of the Creator resting on the seventh, to suit 
with the lunar and chronological period of seven days ; and they 
manufactured a commandment to agree with both. Impostors 
always work in this manner. They put fables for originals, and 
causes for effects. 

There is scarcely any part of science, or any thing in nature* 
which those impostors and blasphemers of science, called priests, 
as well Christians as Jews, have not, at some time or other, per- 
verted, or sought to pervert to the purpose of superstition and false- 
hood. Every thing wonderful in appearance, has been ascribed 
to angels, to devils, or to saints. Every thing ancient has some 
legendary tale annexed to it. The common opperations of nature 
have not escaped their practice "of corrupting every thing. 



296 



REPLY TO THE BISHOP 



FUTURE STATE. 

The idea of a future state was an universal idea to all nations 
except the Jews. At the time and long before Jesus Christ and 
the men called his disciples were born, it had been sublimely 
treated of by Cicero in book on old a<re. by Plato, Socrates, 
Xenophon, and other of the ancient theologists, whom the abu- 
sive Christian church calis heathen. Xenophon represents the 
elder Cyrus speaking after this manner ; — 

" Think not, my dearest children, that when I depart from you, 
I shall be no more : but remember that my soul, even while I 
lived among you, was invisible to you ; yet by my actions you 
were sensible it existed in this body. Believe it therefore existing 
still, though it be still unseen. How quickly would the honors of 
illustrious men perish after death, if their souls performed nothing 
to preserve their fame ? For my own part, I could never think 
that the soul, while in a mortal body, lives, but when departed from 
it dies ; or that its consciousness is lost, when it is discharged 
out of an unconscious habitation. But when it is freed from all 
corporeal alliance, it is then that it truly exists." 

Since then the idea of a future existence was universal, it may 
be asked, what new doctrine does the New Testament contain? 
I answer, that of corrupting the theory of the ancient theologists, 
by annexing to it the heavy and gloomy doctrine of the resurrec- 
tion of the body. 

As to the resurrection of the body, whether the same body or 
another, it is a miserable conceit, fit only to be preached to man. 
as an animal. It is not worthy to be called doctrine. — Such an 
idea never entered the brain of any visionary but those of the 
Christian church ; — yet it is in this that the novelty of the TMew 
Testament consists. All the other matters serve but as props to 
this, and those props are most wretchedly put together. 

MIRACLES. 

The Christian church is full of miracles. In one of the churches 
pS Brabant, they show a number of cannon balls, which, they sny : 



OF LLANDAFF. 297 

the virgin Mary in some former war, caught in her muslin apron, 
as they came roaring out of the cannon's mouth, to prevent their 
hurting the saints of her favourite army. She does no such feats 
now-a-days. Perhaps the reason is, that the infidels have taken 
away her muslin apron. They show also, between Montmatre 
and the village of St. Dennis, several places where they say St. 
Dennis stopt with his head in his hands after it had been cut off 
at Montmatre. The Protestants will call those things lies ; and 
where is the proof that all the other things called miracles are not 
as great lies as those. 

[There appears to be an omission here in the copy.] 

Christ, say those Cabalists, came in the fulness of time. And 
pray what is the fulness of time? The words admit of no idea. 
They are perfectly Cabalistical. Time is a word invented to de- 
scribe to our conception a greater or less portion of eternity. 
It may be a minute, a portion of eternity measured by the vibration 
of a pendulum of a certain length ; — it may be a day, a year, a 
hundred, or a thousand years, or any other quantity. Those por- 
tions are only greater or' less comparatively. 

The word fulness applies not to any of them. The idea of 
fulness of time cannot be conceived. A woman with child and 
ready for delivery, as Mary was when Christ was born, may be 
said to have gone her full time ; but it is the woman that is full, 
not time. 

It may also be said figuratively, in certain cases, that the times 
are full of events ; but time itself is incapable of being full of itself* 
Ye hypocrites ! learn to speak intelligible language. 

It happened to-be a time of peace when they say Christ was 
born ; and what then ? There had been many such intervals : 
and have been many such since. Time was no fuller in any of 
theth than in the other. If he were he would be fuller now than 
he ever was before. If he was full then he must be bursting now. 
But peace or war have relation to circumstances, and not to 
time ; and those Cabalists would be at as much loss to make out 
any meaning to fulness of circumstances, as to fulness of time ; 
and if they could, it would be fatal ; for fulness of circumstances 
would mean, when there are no more circumstances to happen ; 
and fulness of time when there is no more time to follow. 

38 



29S 



KEPL7 TO THE BrSH©? 



Christ, therefore, like every other person, was neither in tM 
fulness of one nor the other. 

But though we cannot conceive the idea of fulness of time, be- 
cause we cannot have conception of a time when there shall be no- 
time ; nor of fulness of circumstances, because we cannot con- 
ceive a state of existence to be without circumstances ; we can 
often see, after a thing is past, it any circumstance, necessary to? 
give the utmost activity and success to that thing, was wanting at 
the time that thing took place. If such a circumstance was want- 
ing, we may be certain that the thing which took place,, was not a* 
thing of God's ordaining ; whose work is always perfect, and his 
means perfect means. They tell us that Christ was the Son of 
God- ; in that case, he would have known every thing. ; and he 
came upon earth to make known the will of God to man through- 
out the whole earth. If this had been true, Christ would have 
known and would have been furnished with all the possible means 
of doing it ; and would have instructed mankind, or at least his 
apostles, in the use of such of the means as they could use them- 
selves to facilitate the accomplishment of the mission ; conse- 
quently he would have instructed them in the art of printing, for 
the press is the tongue of the world ; and without which, his or 
their preaching was less than a whistle compared to thunder. 
Since, then, he did not do this, he had not the means necessary to 
the mission ; and consequently had rfot the mission. 

They tejl us in the book of lets, chap, ii, a very stupid story of 
the Apostles' having the gift of tongues ; and cloven tongues of fire 
descended and sat upon each of them. Perhaps it was this story 
of cloven tongues that gave rise to the notion of slitting Jackdaws 
tongues to make them talk. Be that however as it may, the gift 
of tongues, even if it were true, would be but of little use without 
the art of printing. I can sit in ray chamber, as I do while writing 
this, and by the aid of printing, can send the thoughts I am writing 
through the greatest part of Europe, to the East Indies, and over 
all North America, in a few months. Jesus Christ and his apos- 
tles could not do this. They had not the means, and the want of 
means detects the pretended mission. 

There are three modes of communication. Speaking, writing- 
and printing. The first is exceedingly limited. A man's voice 
can be heard but a few yards of distance : and his person can be 
but in one place. 



OF LLANDAFP. 



299 



Writing is much more extensive ; but the thing written cannot 
fee multiplied but at great expense, and the multiplication will be 
slow and incorrect. Were there no other means of circulating 
Tvhat priests call the word of God (the Old and New Testament) 
than by writing copies, those copies could not be purchased at less 
than forty pounds sterling each : consequently, but few people 
could purchase them, while the writers could scarcely obtain a 
livelihood by it. But the art ««f printing changes all the cases, and 
opens a scene as vast as the world. It gives to man a sort of 
divine attribute. It gives to him mental omnipresence. He can 
be every where and at the same instant ; for wherever he is read 
he is mentally there. 

The case applies not only against the pretended mission of 
Christ and his apostles, but against every thing that priests call 
the word of God, and against all those who pretend to deliver it ; 
for had God ever delivered any verbal word, he would have taught 
the means of communicating it. The one without the other is 
inconsistent with the wisdom we conceive of the Creator. 

The third chapter of Genesis, verse 21, tells us that God made 
coats of skins and cloathed Adam and Eve. It was infinitely 
more important that man should be taught the art of printing, than 
that Adam should be taught to make a pair of leather breeches, or 
his wife a petticoat. 

There is another matter, equally striking and important, that 
connects itself with those observations against this pretended word 
of God, this manufactured book, called Revealed Religion, 

We know that whatever is of God's doing is unalterable by man 
beyond the laws which the Creator has ordained. We cannot 
make a tree grow with the root in the air and the fruit in the ground ; 
we cannot make iron into gold nor gold into iron ; we cannot 
make rays of light shine forth rays of darkness, nor darkness shine 
forth light. If there were such a thing, as a w ord of God, it would 
possess the same properties which all his other works do. It would 
resist destructive alteration. But we see that the book which 
they call the word of God has not this property. That book says, 
Genesis chap. 1, verse 27, '* So God created man in his own 
image but the printer can make it say, So man created God in 
his own image. The words are passive to every transposition of 
them, or can be annihilated and others put in their places. This 
is not the case with any thing that is of God's doing ; and, there- 



aoo 



REPLY THE BISHOP ©F LLANBAFF. 



fore, this book, called the word of G od, tried by the same universal 
rule which every other of God's works within our reach can be 
tried by, proves itself to be a forgery. 

The bishop say.*, that " miracles are proper proofs of a divine 
mission." Admitted. But we know that men, and especially 
priests, can tell lies and cali them miracles. It is therefore neces- 
sary, that the thing called a miracle be proved to be true, and also 
to be miraculous ; before it can be admitted as proof of the thing 
called revelation. 

The bishop must be a bad logician not to know that one doubt- 
ful thing cannot be admitted as proof that another doubtful thing 
is true. It would be like attempting to prove a liar not to be a 
liar, by the evidence of another, who is as great a liar as himself. 

Though Jesus Christ, by being ignorant of the art of printing, 
shows he had not the means necessary to a divine mission, and 
consequently had no such mission ; it does not follow that if he 
had known that art, the divinity of what they call his mission would 
be proved thereby, any more than it proved the divinity of the man 
who invented printing. Something, therefore, beyond printing, 
even if he had known it, was necessary as a miracle, to have 
proved that what he delivered was the word of God ; and this was 
that the book in which that word should be contained, which is 
now called the Old and New Testament, should possess the mirac- 
ulous property, distinct from all human books, of resisting altera- 
tion. This would be not only a miracle, but an ever existing and 
universal miracle ; whereas, those which they tell us of, even if 
they had been true, were momentary and local ; they would leave no 
trace behind, after the lapse of a few years, of having ever existed ; 
but this would prove, in all ages and in all places, the book to be 
divine and not human ; as effectually, and as conveniently, as 
aquafortis proves gold to be gold by not being capable of acting 
upon it ; and detects all other metals and all counterfeit composi- 
tion, by dissolving them. Since then the only miracle capable of 
every proof is wanting, and which every thing that is of a divine 
origin possesses ; all the tales of miracles with which the Old and 
New Testament are tilled, are fit only for impostors to preach and 
fools to believe. 



ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY. 



PREFACE BY THE EDITOR. 

This tract is a chapter belonging- to the third part of the Age of 
Reason, as will be seen by the references made in it to preced- 
ing articles, as forming a part of the same work. It was culled 
from the writings of Mr. Paine, after his death, and published in a 
mutilated state, by Mrs. Bonneville, his executrix. Passages hav- 
ing a reference to the Christian religion she erased, with a viewv 
no doubt, of accommodating the work to the prejudices of bigotry, 
These, however, have been restored from the original manuscript, 
excepting a few lines which were rendered illegible. 

The masonic society had committed nothing to print until the 
year 1722, when Doctor Anderson's book of constitutions, &c. was 
ordered by the Grand Lodge to be printed. Since that time the 
masons have published many works respecting the fraternity, all of 
which, through design or want of information, tend to obscure 
and embarrass the subject ; and as the society had adopted the 
custom of the priests of the ancient Britons, called Druids, to keep 
their proceedings an entire secret, mankind in general, including 
the greater portion of the brethren themselves, have remained in 
utter ignorance in regard to its establishment a id original intention. 
Various speculations therefore continue to be made respecting the 
origin of the society, and its views at the time of its formation ; 
and Mr. Paine among the rest, with all his sagacity, has suffered 
himself to be most egregiously deceived by such writings of the 
masons as had fallen into his hands. These writers, in giving an 
account of the society, take up the history of architecture as far 
back as any record of it has survived the wreck of time. Where- 
ever they can trace in history, whether true or fabulous, any ac- 
count of noble and grand structures, they presumptuously pro- 
nounce them to have been raised by their society. The pyramids 
of Egypt, the tower of Babel, whose existence is doubted, and So- 
lomon's temple, about which there has probably been much lying, 



PREFACE. 



are all claimed by them. For what is this ridiculous parade, hu£ 
to make the uninitiated, as well as their own members, few of whom 
know any thing about it, wonder at the astonishing antiquity of 
the institution 1 Would not the advice of Pope apply in this case ? 

" Go ! and pretend your family is young, 
Nor own your fathers have been fools so long." 

If the antiquity of a sect or society proved its utility, or that it 
Was founded in correct principles ; the religion taught by the an- 
cient Egptians priests, or judaism, ought to be preferred to Chris- 
tianity. 

There is no possible use to be derived from deception upon 
this subject. The masonic society is undoubtedly very ancient ; 
having commenced, in the city of York, in England, in the early 
part of the tenth century of the Christian era ; and from thence it 
spread into other parts of Europe. It was formed by men who 
had some knowledge of rude architecture, such as it was at that 
day, and working masons ; and had no other view than improve- 
ment in the art or craft of masonry. Which their writers dignify 
with the title of royal craft, because some of their Kings have con- 
descended to become members of the society, for the purpose, no 
doubt, of flattering their subjects to persevere in improvements in 
the art of building ; which was useful to them, as they always 
stand in need of palaces, castles-, and churches. The soriety is 
composed of free men, none others are admitted, hence. the term, 
free masons. At first there were but three degrees, apprentice ; 
fellow-craft, that . is, one who had served an apprenticeship, and 
was entitled to wages as a journeyman ; and master-mason. The 
latter degree entitled its possessor to contract for building on his 
own account. It was not until the beginning of the eighteenth 
century, that any one, according to the regulations of the society, 
could be admitted a member, who did not labour at the trade of 
masonry, or knew something of architecture ; although, perhnps, 
through favour, some were smuggled in who had very little or no 
knowledge of that art.* 

* The author of this Preface, although he has thrown considerable light up- 
on the subject, has been himself deceived by masonic writers in respect to the 
origin of the existing society of Freemasons ; which is entirely speculative, and 
was instituted at the time when, he says, persons not being masons by trade 
were first admitted as members, viz. in the early part of the eighteenth century. 
jLg,te writers have shown, that the first Lodge ever established upon the existv 



As to the mysteries of the craft, so much talked of, they are of 
the same nature as those of carpentry, or any other trade ; and 
consist in a knowledge of the art of masonry ; which was thought 
much more of at the time the society was instituted, than at the 
present day. The trifling right and ceremonies, which the ma- 
sons borrowed from the ancient Druids, are mere allegories, and 
symbolical signs and words, serving as a medium of secrecy, by 
means of which the members of the society are enabled to recog- 
nize each other. 

There is no more propriety in prefixing the term free to mason- 
ry, than there is to carpentry, smithery, or to any other trade. 
It is inapplicable to any art or trade ; although it may be applied to 
the professors of it. At the time the free masons' society was first 
instituted in England there were in that kingdom both free men 
and slaves in all the mechanical trades then in use. Doctor Hen- 
ry, in his history of Great Britain, giving an account of the differ- 
ent ranks of people, &c. from 419 to 1066, after stating that 
slavery had been in some degree meliorated, observes, " But after 
all these mitigations of the severities of slavery, the yoke of servi- 
tude was still very heavy, and the greater part of the labourers, 
mechanics, and common people, groaned under that yoke at the 
conclusion of this period." 

All the writers upon this subject, who are members of the so- 
ciety, endeavour to conceal the origin' and object of it. For what 
reason it is dificult to imagine, except it be to keep the world in 
amazement respecting it. Or, perhaps, their pride induces them 
to contemn the bumble, though laudable and useful purposes for 
which the institution was formed. Enough, however, has appeared 
in the old records which they have published to establish the view 
I have taken of it, and which, when I commenced this preface, I 
intended to have inserted ; but finding they would extend to too 

ing speculative plan, was formed in London, in 1717; and that a similar society 
was formed in Scotland, in 1736. These two lodges soon began to quarrel 
about precedency ; each endeavouring to prove its priority by existing records 
of the humble mechanical societies of labouring masons, which had been es- 
tablished in both kingdoms many centuries before. The Yorkites, in England,, 
it is believed, produced the oldest documents : both societies, however, continu- 
ed to grant dispensations for forming lodges in foreign countries. 

From these two sources all the Freemason societies, upon the present es- 
tablishment, owe their origin. Nothing of the kind ever existed in Europe, or 
any other quarter of the world, previously to 1717. Although ostensibly found- 
ed upon a society of real working masons, nothing is now taught in it, nor ever 
has been, of that art, or any other art or science.— Ed. 



304 



i»KEFACE. 



great a length, I am under the necessity of omitting them. I wn% 
however, make a few extracts from the old charges of the Free and 
Accepted Masons, collected from their old records, at the com- 
mand of the Grand Master, by James Anderson,~D. D. Ap- 
proved by the grand Lodge, and ordered to be printed in the first 
edition of the book of constitutions, on March 25, 1722. 

" Concerning God and religion. A mason is obliged, by his 
tenure, to obey the moral law ; and if he rightly understands the 
art, he will never be a stupid atheist, nor an irreligious libertine. 
But though in ancient times masons were charged in every coun- 
try to be of the religion of that country or nation, whatever it was, 
yet it is now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that 
religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular opinions 
to themselves ; that is, to be good men and true, or men of honor 
and honesty, by whatever denominations or persuasions they may 
be distinguished ; whereby masonry becomes the centre of union, 
and the means of conciliating true friendship among persons, that 
must have remained at a perpetual distance.* 

" Of lodges. A lodge is a place where masons assemble and 
work : hence that assembly, or duly organized society of masons, 
is called a lodge ; and every brother ought to belong to one, and 
to be subject to its By-Laws and the general regulations. 

" The persons admitted members of a lodge, must be good and 
true men, free-born, and of mature and discreet age, no bond- 
men, no women, no immoral or scandalous men, but of good 
report. 

41 Of apprentices. Candidates may know, that no master should 
take an apprentice, unless he has sufficient employment for him, 
and unless he be a perfect youth, baving no maim or defect in his 
body, that may render him incapable of learning the art, of serv- 
ing his master's lord, and of being made a brother, and then a 
fellow-craft in due time y even after he has served such a term of 

* William Preston, past master of the lodge of antiquity, in his illustrations 
of masonry, makes the following remarks on the same subject. " The spirit 
of the fulminating priest will be tamed ; and amoral brother, though of a dif- 
ferent persuasion, engage his esteem ; for mutual toleration in religious opin- 
ions is one of the most distinguishing and valuable characteristics of the craft. 
As all religions teach morality,, if a brother be found to act the part of a truly 
honest man, his private speculative opinions are left to God and himself. Thus 
through the influence of masonry, which is reconcilable to the best policy, all 
those disputes which imbitter life, and softs the tempers of. men, are avoided.* 



PREFACE'. 



305 



years, as the custom of the country directs ; and that he should 
be descended of honest parents. 

" Of the management of the craft in working. All masons shall 
work honestly on working days, that they may live creditably on 
holy days ; and the time appointed by the law of the land, or con- 
firmed by custom, shall be observed. 

" The most expert of the fellow-craftmen shall be chosen, or 
appointed the master or overseer of the lord's work ; who is to 
be called master by those that work under him. The craftsmen 
are to avoid all ill language, and to call each other by no disoblig- 
ing name, but brother or fellow ; and to behave themselves cour- 
teously within and without the lodge. 

" The master, knowing himself to be able of cunning, shall un- 
dertake the lord's work as reasonably as possible, and truly dis- 
pend his goods as if they were his own ; nor give more wages to 
any brother or apprentice, than he really may deserve. 

" Both the master and the masons receiving their wages justly, 
shall be faithful to the lord, and honestly finish their work, whe- 
ther task or journey ; nor put the work to task that hath been 
accustomed to journey. 

" None shall discover envy at the prosperity of a brother, nor 
supplant him, or put him out of his work, if he be capable to 
finish the same ; for no man can finish another's work so much to 
the lord's profit, unless he be thoroughly acquainted with the de- 
signs and draughts of him that began it. 

" When a fellow-craftsman is chosen warden of the work under 
the master, he shall be true both to master and fellows, shall care- 
fully oversee the work in the master's absence, to the lord's profit ; 
and his brethren shall obey him. 

" All masons employed, shall meekly receive their wages with- 
out murmuring or mutiny, and not desert the master till the work is 
finished. 

" A younger brother shall be instructed in working, to prevent 
spoiling the materials for want of judgment, and for increasing 
and continuing of brotherly love. 

" All the tools used in working shall be approved by the Grand 
Lodge. 

"No labourer shall be employed in the proper work of masonry ; 
nor shall Free Masons work with those that are r,ot Free, without 

39 



306 



an urgent necessity ; nor shall they teach labourers and un&Ccepiy 
ed masons, as they should teach a brother or fellow. 

" Of behaviour in the Lodge while constituted. If any complaint 
be brought, the brother found guilty shall stand to the award and 
determination of the lodge, who are the proper and competent 
judges of all such controversies, (unless you carry it by appeal to 
the Grand Lodge,) and to whom they ought to be referred, unless 
a lord's work be hindered the mean while, in which case a par- 
ticular reference may be made ; but you must never go to law 
about what concerneth masonry, without an absolute necessity ap- 
parent to the lodge, 

" Behaviour in presence of strangers not masons. You shall be 
cautious in your words and carriage, that the most penetrating 
stranger shall not be able to discover or find out what is not pro- 
per to be intimated ; and sometimes you shall divert a discourse, 
and manage it prudently for the honour of the worshipful fra- 
ternity. 

"Behaviour at home, and in your neighbourhood. You are to act 
as becomes a moral and wise man ; particularly, not to let your 
family, friends, and neighbours know the concerns of the Lodge, 
&c, but wisely to consult your own honour, and that of the an- 
cient brotherhood. You must also consult your health, by not 
continuing together too late, or too long from home, after lodge 
hours are past; and by avoiding of gluttony and drunkenness that 
your families be' not neglected or injured, nor you disabled from 
working. 

" Behaviour towards a strange brother. You are cautiously to 
examine him, in such a method as prudence shall direct you, that 
you may not be imposed upon by an ignorant false pretender.* 
whom you are to reject with contempt and derision, and beware of 
giving him any hints of knowledge. 

** But if you discover him to be a true and genuine brother, you 
are to respect him accordingly ; and if he is in want, you must 
relieve him if you can, or else direct him how he may be relieved; 
you must employ him some days, or else recommend him to be 
employed. But you are not charged to do beyond your ability, 
only to prefer a poor brother that is a good man and true, before 
any other poor people in the same circumstances." 

All the old charges have a reference to Free Masons in the ca^- 
pacity of labourers, and as " good men and true," and, no doubt , 



PREFACE. 



307 



tiad a beneficial effect. But the substance has been lost sight of, 
and the skeleton, or shadow, only retained. The mummery of the 
Druidical priests, with infinite additions of the same cast, is cher- 
ished as the desideratum of knowledge, calculated to complete the 
sum of human happiness and perfection. The corruptions of the 
Society seem to have kept pace with those of the Christian reli- 
gion. It is at this day as different to what it was, as the Christian- 
ity now professed is to the religion taught by Jesus Christ. In his 
time there were no Doctors of Divinity — Right Reverend Fathers 
in God, nor their Holinesses the Popes. Neither were there in. 
the Society of Free Masons, at its commencement, any Grand 
Secretaries — Grand Treasurers — Knights of Malta — Captain 
Generals — Generalissamos — Most Excellent Scribes — Most Ex- 
cellent High Priests — Most Excellent Kings, &c. &c* To 
which might now, perhaps, very appropriately be added, Grand 
bottle holder and cork drawer. 

The admission into the society of kings, princes, noblemen, 
bishops, and doctors in divinity, as patrons of the institution, has 
probably been the cause of so great change. These men, it may 
be presumed, brought much of their consequence with them into 
the Lodge, and were, no doubt, addressed in a manner suitable 
to their supposed dignity in other stations. At any rate, by what- 
ever means these high sounding titles may have been introduced, 
they appear ridiculous when applied to members of an institution 
founded for such purpose as that of the Masonic Society, and 
ought to be abandoned. 

It is difficult, at this time, for members of the Society, or any 
body else, to say what benefit is to be derived from the magical 
arts pretended to be practised in the Lodges. The mystic rites 
and ceremonies of the Egyptian priests, handed down to the Druids 
by Pythagoras ; the miraculous stories related of the ancient 
Jews ; and the legendary tales of Roman Catholic superstition, 
fruitful sources of imposition, have been ransacked to find subjects 
for new degrees to be tacked to the Society of Free Masons. I 
have in my possession a list of forty-three degrees in what is 
called Free Masonry ; one of which is the order of the Holy 
Ghost. 

* This is true, if reference be made to what it was, when under the manage." 
ment of the real masons, the operatives previously to the year 1717. 



308 



PREFACE. 



If, as here represented, all this mystical nonsense has been ob- 
truded into the Society, it may be asked, why do men of sense 
attach themselves to it ? I answer, many retire from it after taking 
two or three degrees ; some have political or other sinister views 
which retain them ; and, furthermore, most men are fond of dis- 
tinction in some way. Any man, of common understanding, by 
bei'sg punctual at the meetings, and paying strict attention to the 
ceremonies, may become a Warden, that is, overseer, or some 
other grand office, even that of .Most Worshipful Grand Master ; 
and in the mean time, keep mounting up the ladder, from mystery 
to mystery, till he arrives at the forty-third degree of perfection: 
which, however, in my opinion, cannot be of the least possible ad- 
vantage to him here or hereafter, any further than the consequence 
it may give him. As to those who serve in the ranks, they probably 
consider themselves sufficiently honored by being hailed as broth- 
ers by thoss whom they think their superiors, and permitted to 
parade the streets with ribbands and white aprons, to the amaze- 
ment of the profane vulgar. 

Notwithstanding the remarks I have made, I am by no means 
inimical to the Masonic Society ; for I believe it to be a liberal, 
social institution, in which persons of the most opposite opinions 
on religious and political subjects associate in the utmost harmony. 
By these friendly meetings, it is to be presumed, that party spirit, 
both in politics and religion, loses much of its asperity among the 
members ; and that those, who otherwise might have entertained 
hostile feelings towards each other, become friends. In this point 
of view, the Society deserves to be held in the highest estimation ; 
for however laudable zeal may be in a just cause, when carried to 
excess, so as to excite personal ill-will towards others of contrary 
opinions, it degenerates into its kindred vice, leading to hatred 
and persecution. No good reason can be given why men of the 
same or similar societies should entertain greater partiality for one 
another, than for others of their fellow-men, any further than their 
merits when known may deserve ; and to this it is generally limit- 
ed among men of sense : still, in consequence of the obligations 
by which Masons are bound to each other, and a sort of bigotry 
in many, this partiality has had its good effects in mitigating the 
evils of war ; and, for men who travel, a diploma from a Lodge 
has passed as a letter of recommendation in foreign countries. 



PREFACE. 



309 



As a charitable institution, the Masonic Society ought to be 
held in high consideration. The relief it grants to its members 
and their families in distress, is very considerable. But, unfortu- 
nately, as I am told, its means ar. very much exhausted by ex- 
penses incurred for refreshments at the regular meetings. If 
each member were required to pay for what he consumes at those 
meetings, the society, in consequence of its numbers, by its in- 
come arising from annual contributions, fees of initiation, &c, 
would be enabled to do more in charity, perhaps, than any private 
society in existence. 

As to what Mr. Paine has said upon this abstruse subject, I take 
the liberty of observing, that, in my opinion, notwithstanding the 
talents he has bestowed upon it, and the interest he has given to 
it, his remarks, made doubtless in the utmost sincerity, are calcu- 
lated to perplex and embarrass readers not conversant in these 
matters, as much as those of any other author, whose design was 
to involve it in unintelligible mystery. 

"In thoughts more elevate, he reasoned high, 
But found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost." 



ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY. 



It is always understood that Free-Masons have a secret which 
they carefully conceal ; but from every thing that can be collected 
from their own accounts of Masonry, their real secret is no other 
than their origin, which but few of them understand ; and those 
who do, envelope it in mystery. 

The Society of Masons are distinguished into three classes or 
degrees. 1st. The entered apprentice. 2d. The Fellow-Craft. 
3d. The Master Mason. 

The entered apprentice knows but little more of Masonry, than 
the use of signs and tokens, and certain steps and words, by which 
Masons can recognize each other,. without being discovered by 
a person who is not a Mason. The fellow-craft is not much bet- 
ter instructed in Masonry, than the entered apprentice. It is 
only in the Master Mason's lodge, that whatever knowledge re- 
mains of the origin of Masonry is preserved and concealed. 

In 1730, Samuel Pritchard, member of a constituted lodge in 
England, published a treatise entitled Masonry 'Dissected; and 
made oath before the Lord Mayor of London, thatlt was a true 
copy. 

" Samuel Pritchard maketh oath that the copy hereunto annex- 
ed is a true and genuine copy in every particular." 

In his work he has given the catechism, or examination, in 
question and answer, of the apprentices, the fellow-craft, and the 
Master Mason. There was no difficulty in doing this, as it is 
mere form. 

In his introduction he says, " the original institution of Mason- 
ry consisted in the foundation of the liberal arts and sciences, but 



ORIGIN OP FREE-MASONRY* 



311 



irtore especially in Geometry, for at the building of the tower of 
Babel, the art and mystery of Masonry was first introduced, and 
from thence handed down by Euclid, a worthy and excellent ma- 
thematician of the Egyptians ; and he communicated it to Hiram, 
the Master Mason concerned in building Solomon's Temple in 
Jerusalem. 

- Besides the absurdity of deriving Masonry from the building of 
Babel, where, according to the story, the confusion of languages 
prevented the builders understanding each other, and consequent- 
ly of communicating any knowledge they had there, is a glaring 
contradiction in point of chronology in the account he gives. v 
Solomon's Temple was built and dedicated 1004 years before 
the Christian era ; and Euclid, as may be seen in the tables of 
chronology, lived 277 years before the same era. It was there- 
fore impossible that Euclid could communicate any thing to 
Hiram, since Euclid did not live till 700 years after the time of 
Hiram. 

In 1783, Captain George Smith, inspector of the Royal Artil- 
lery Academy at Woolwich, in England, and Provincial Grand 
Master of Masonry for the county of Kent, published a treatise 
entitled, The Use and Abuse of Free-Masonry. 

In his chapter of the antiquity of Masonry, he makes it to be co- 
eval with creation. " When," says he, " the sovereign architect 
raised on Masonic principles the beauteous <rlobe. and commanded 
that master science, Geometry, to lay the planetary world, and to 
regulate by its laws the whole stupendous system in just unerring 
proportion, rolling round the central sun." 

" But," continues he, " I am not at liberty publicly to undraw 
the curtain, and thereby to descant on this head ; it is sacred, and 
will ever remain so ; those who are honoured with the trust will 
not reveal it, and those who are ignorant of it cannot betray it." 
By this last part of the phrase, Smith means the two inferior class- 
es, the fellow-craft and the entered apprentice, for he says, in the 
next page of his work, " It is not every one that is barely initiated 
into Free-Masonry that is entrusted with all the mysteries thereto 
belonging ; they are not attainable as things of course, nor by every 
capacity." 

The learned, but unfortunate Doctor Do^d, Grand Chaplain of 
Masoniy, in his oration at the dedication of Free-Mason's-Hah% 
London, traces Masonry through a variety of stages. Masons, 



ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY. 



says he , are well informed from their own private and interior re<* 
cords, that the building of Solomon's Temple is an important era, 
from whence they derive many mysteries of their art. " Now 
(says he,) be it remembered that this great event took place above 
1000 years before the Christian era, and consequently more than 
a century before Homer, the first of the Grecian Poets, wrote ; 
and above five centuries before Pythagoras brought from the east 
his sublime system of truly masonic instruction to illuminate our 
western world. 

" But, remote as this period is, we date not from thence the 
commencement of our art. For though it might owe to the wise 
and glorious King of Israel, some of its maivy mystic forms and 
hieroglyphic ceremonies, yet certainly the art itself is coeval with 
man, the great subject of it. 

" We trace," continues he, " its footsteps in the most distant, 
the most remote ages and nations of the world. We find it amongst 
the first and most celebrated civilizers of the East. We deduce it 
regularly from the first astronomers on the plains of Chaldea, to 
the wise and mystic kings and priests of Egypt, the sages of 
Greece, and the philosophers of Rome." 

From these reports and declarations of Masons of the highest 
order in the institution, we see that Masonry, without publicly de- 
claring so, lays claim to some divine communication from the 
Creator, in a manner different from, and unconnected with, the 
book which the Christians call the Bible ; and the natural result 
from this is, that Vlasonry is derived from some very ancient re- 
ligion, wholly independent of, and unconnected with that book. 

To come then at once to the point, Masonry (as I shall show 
from the customs, ceremonies, hieroglyphics, and chronology of 
Masonry) is derived, and is the remains of the religion of the an- 
cient Druids; who, like the magi of Persia and the priests of 
Heliopolis in Egypt, were priests of the sun. They paid worship 
to this great luminary, as the great visible agent of a great invisi- 
ble first cause, whom they stiled, Time without limits. 

The Christian religion and Masonry have one and the same 
common origin, both are derived from the worship of the sun ; the 
difference between their origin is, that the Christian religion is a 
parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man whom 
they call Christ, in the place of the sun, and pay him the same 



OKISIN OF FPiEE-MASONRYo 



313 



adoration which was originally paid to the sun, as I have shown in 
the chapter on the origin of the Christian religion.* 

In Masonry many of the ceremonies of the Druids are preserv- 
ed in their original state, at least without any parody. With them 
the sun is still the sun ; and his image in the form of the sun, is 
the great emblematical ornament of Masonic Lodges and Masonic 
dresses. It is the central figure on their aprons, and they wear it 
also pendant on the breast in their lodges, and in their processions. 
It has the figure of a man, as at the head of the sun, as Christ is 
always represented. 

At what period of antiquity, or in what nation, this religion was 
first established, is lost in the labyrinth of unrecorded times. It is 
generally ascribed to the ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians and 
Chaldeans, and reduced afterwards to a system regulated by the 
apparent progress of the sun through the twelve signs of zodiac by 
Zoroaster the lawgiver of Persia, from whence Pythagoras brought 
it into Greece. It is to these matters Dr. Dodd refers in the pas- 
sage already quoted from his oration. 

The worship of the sun, as the great visible agent of a great in- 
visible first cause, time without limits, spread itself over a consi- 
derable part of Asia and Africa, from thence to Greece and Rome, 
through all ancient Gau / ,md into Britain and Ireland. 

Smith, in his chapter on the antiquity of Masonry in Britain, 
says, that "notwithstanding the obscurity which envelopes masonic 
history in that country, various circumstances contribute to prove 
that Free-Masonry was introduced into Britain about 1030 years 
before Christ." 

It cannot be Masonry in its present state that Smith here alludes 
to. The Druids flourished in Britain at the period he speaks of, 
and it is from them that Masonry is descended. Smith has put 
the child in the place of the parent. 

It sometimes happens, as well in writing as in conversation, 
that a person lets slip an expression that serves to unravel what he 
intends to conceal, and this is the case with Smith, for in the same 
chapter he says, " The Druids, when they committed any thing to 
writing, used the Greek alphabet, and 1 am bold to assert that the 
most perfect remains of the Druid's rites and ceremonies are 

* Referring to an unpublished portion of the work of which this chapter 
forms a part. 

40 - 



314 



preserved in the customs and ceremonies of the Masons tnat are t& 
be found existing among mankind. ** My brethren" says he, '* may 
be able to trace them with greater exactness than I am at liberty 
to explain to the public." 

This is a confession from a Master Mason,, without intending it 
to be so understood by the public, that Masonry is the remains of 
the religion of the Druids ; the reasons for the Masons keeping 
this a secret I shall explain in the course of this work. 

As the study and contemplation of the Creator in the works of 
the creation, of which the sun, as the great" visible agent of thai 
Being, was the visible object of the adoration of Druids, all their 
religious rites and ceremonies had reference to the apparent pro- 
gress of the sun through the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and his 
influence upon the earth. The Masons adopt the same practices. 
The roof of their temples or lodges is ornamented with a sun, and 
the floor is a representation of the variegated face of the earth, 
either by carpeting or by Mosaic Work. 

Free-Masons' Hall, in Great Queen-street, Lincoln's Inn 
Fields, London, is a magnificent building, and cost upwards of 
12,000 pounds sterling. Smith, in speaking of this building, says 
(page 152.) " The roof of this magnificent hall is, in all proba- 
bility the highest piece of finished architecture in Europe. In the 
centre of this roof, a most resplendent sun is represented in burn- 
ished gold, surrounded with the twelve signs of the Zodiac, with; 
thei respective characters : 



T Aries 
8 Taurus 
II Gemini 
55 Cancer 
SI Leo 
tt# Virgo 



=s± Libra 
fli Scorpio 
$ Sagittarius 
\f3 Capricornus 

Aquarius 
X Pisces 



After giving this description, he says, " The emblematical mean - 
ing of the sun is well known to the enlightened and inquisitive 
Free-Mason ; and as the real sun is situated in the centre of the 
universe, so the emblematical sun is the centre of real Masonry. 
We all know continues he, that the sun is the fountain of light, the 
source of the seasons, the cause of the vicissitudes of day and 
night, the parent of vegetation, the friend of man ; hence the sci- 
entific Free-Mason only knows the reason why the sun is placed 
in the centre of this beautiful hall." 



miiGlN OF I E.EE-M A S C N R V. 3l§ 

v ihe Masons, in order to protect themselves from the persecu- 
tion of the Christian church, have always spoken in a mystical 
manner of the figure of the sun in their lodges, or, like the astron- 
omer Lalande, who is a mason, een silent upon the subject. It is 
their secret, especially in Catholic countries, because the figure of 
the sun is the expressive criterion that denotes they are descended 
from the Druids, and that wise, elegant, philosophical, religion, was 
the t'aiih opposite to the faith of the gloomy Christian church. 

The lodges of the Masons, if built far the purpose, are con- 
structed in a manner to correspond with the apparent motion of 
the sun. They arc situated blast and W est. The master's place 
is always in the East. In the examination of an entered appren- 
tice, the master, among many other questions, asks him, 

Q. How is the lodge situated 1 

A. East and West. 

Q. Why so 1 

A. Because all churches and chapels are, or ought to be so. 

This answer, which is mere catechismal form, is pot an answer 
to the question. It does no more than remove the question a point 
further, which is, why ought all churches and chapels to be so ? 
But as the entered apprentice is not initiated into the Druidical 
mysteries of Masonry, he is not asked any questions to which a 
direct answer would lead thereto. 

Q. Where stands your master? 

A. In the East. 

Q. Why so I 

A. A.s the sun rises in the East, and opens the day, so the master 
stands in the East, (with his right hand upon his left breast, being 
a sign, and the square about his neck,) to open the lodge, and set 
his men at work. 

Q. Where stand your wardens ? 

A. In the West. 

Q. What is their business ? 

A. As the sun sets in the W r est to close the day, so the ward- 
ens stand in the W r est, (with their right hands upon their left breasts 
being a sign, and the level and plumb rule about their necks,) to 
close the lodge, and dismiss the men from labour, paying them 
their wages. 

Here the name of the sun is mentioned, but it is proper to ob- 
serve, that in this place it has reference only to labour or to the 



316 



ORIGIN OF FREE-32 A.SONRY. 



time of labour, and not to any religious Druidical rite or ceremony, 
as it would have with respect to the situation of lodges East and 
West. I have already observed in the chapter on the origin of 
the Christian religion, that the situation of churches East and 
W est is taken from the worship of the sun, which rises in the east, 
and has not the least reference to the person called Jesus Christ. 
The Christians never bury their dead on the North side of a 
church ;* and a Mason's Lodge always has, or is supposed to 
have, three windows which are called fixed lights, to distinguish 
them from the moveable lights of the sun and the moon. The 
master asks the entered apprentice, 

Q. How are they (the fixed lights) situated ? 

A. East, West, and South. 

Q. What are their uses t 

A. To light the men to and from their work. 

Q. Why are there no lights in the North 1 

A. Because the sun darts no rays from thence. 

This, among numerous other instances, shows that the Christian 
religion, and Masonry, have one and the same common origin, the 
ancient worship of the sun. 

The high festival of the Masons is on the day they call St. John's 
day ; but every enlightened Mason must know that holding their 
festival on this day has no reference to the person called St. John ; 
and that it is only to disguise the true cause of holding it on this 

* This may have been the case formerly, but I believe, at present, very lit- 
tle attention is paid to the position of burying grounds in respect to churches. 
In regard to " the situation of Churches east and west," I find the rule was ob- 
served as late as the time of building Saint Paul's Cathedral, which was finish- 
ed in 18.97. William Presten, in giving a description of this edifice, in his Illus- 
trations of Masonry, says, "A strict regard to the situation of this Cathedral, 
due east and west/has given it an oblique appearance with respect to Ludgate- 
street in front; so that the great front gate hi the surrounding iron rails, being 
made to regard the street in front, rather than the church to which it belongs, 
the statue of queen Ann, that is exactly in the middle of the west front, is 
thrown on one side the straight approach from the gate to the church, and gives 
an idea of the whole edifice being awry." In 1707, Sir Christopher Wren, the 
Architect of St. Paul's Cathedral, in a letter addressed to a joint commissioner 
with himself for building fifty churches in addition to others already built, to sup- 
ply the place of those destroyed by the conflagration of 1666, observes, " I could 
wish that all the burials in churches should be disallowed, which is not only 
unwholesome, but the pavements can never be kept even, nor pews upright ; 
and if the Church-yard is close about the church, this also is inconvenient. It 
will be enquired, where then shall be the burials ? I answer in cemeteries 
seated in the out-skirts of the town. As to the situation of the churches, 1 
should propose they be brought as forward as possible into the larger and more 
open streets. Nor are we, I think, too nicely to observe East and West in the 
position, unless it falls out properly." See Anderson's Book of Constitution's 
of the Free-Masons. — Editor. 



ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY. 317 

day, that they call the day by that name. As there were Masons, 
or at lea t Druids, many centuries before the time of St. John, if 
such person ever existed, the holding their festival on this day 
must refer to some cause totally unconnected with John. 

The case is, that the day called St. John's day, is the 24th of 
June, and is" what is called Midsummer-day. The sun is then ar- 
rived at the summer solstice ; and," with respect to his meridional 
altitude, or height at high noon, appears for some days to be of the 
same height. The astronomical longest day, like the shortest day, 
Is not every year, on account of leap year, on the same numerical 
day, and therefore the 24th of June is always taken for Midsum- 
mer-day ; and it is in honor of the sun, which has then arrived at 
his greatest height, in our hemisphere, and not any thing with 
respect to St.. John, that this annual festival of the Masons, taken 
from the Druids, is celebrated on Midsummer-day. 

Customs will often outlive the remembrance 'of their origin, and 
this is the case with respect to a custom still practised in Ireland, 
where the Druids flourished at the time they flourished in Britain. 
On the eve of Saint John's day, that is, on the eve of Midsummer 
day, the Irish light fires on the tops of the hills. This can have no 
reference to St. John ; but it has emblematical reference to the 
sun, which on that day is at his highest summer elevation, and 
might in common language be said to have arrived at the top of 
the hill. 

As to what Masons, and books of Masonry, tell us of Solomon's 
Temple at Jerusalem, it is no wise improbable that some masonic 
ceremonies may have been derived from the building of that tem- 
ple, for the worship of the sun was in practice many centuries be- 
fore the temple existed, or before the Israelites came out of Egypt. 
And we learn from the history of the Jewish Kings, 2 Kings, chap, 
xxii. xxiii. that the worship of the sua was performed by the Jews 
in that temple. It. is, however, much to be doubted, if it was done 
with the same scientific purity and religious morality, with which it 
was performed by the Druids, who, by all accounts that historically 
remain of them, were a wise, learned, and moral class of men, 
The Jews, on the contrary, were ignorant of astronomy, and of 
science in general, and if a religion founded upon astronomy, fell 
into their hands, it is almost certain it would be corrupted. We 
do not read in the history of the Jews, whether in the Bible or 
elsewhere, that they were the inventors or the improvers of any 



318 ORIGIN OF FREE MASONRY. 

one art or science. Even in the building of this temple, the Jews 
did not know how to square and frame the timber for beginning 
and carrying on the work, and Solomon was obliged to send to 
Hiram, King of Tyre, ^Zidon) to procure workmen ; " for thou 
knowest, (says Solomon to Hiram, 1 Kings, chap. v. ver. 6.) that 
there is not among us any that can skill to hew timber like unto 
the Zidonians." This temple was more properly Hiram's temple 
than Solomon's, and if the Masons derive any thing from the 
building of it, they owe it to the Zidonians and not to the Jews. — 
But to return to the worship of the sun in this temple. 

It is said, 2 Kings, chap, xxiii. ver. 8. u And king Josiah put 
down all the idolatrous priests that burned incense unto the sun, 
the moon, the planets, and all the host of heaven." — And it is said 
at the 11th v«r. " and he took away the horses that the kings of 
Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the 
Lord, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire, ver. 13, and 
the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the 
right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of 
Israel had builded for Astoreth, the abomination of the Zido- 
nians (the very people that built the temple) did the king defile. 

Besides these things, the description that Josepbus gives of the 
decorations of this temple, resembles on a large scale those of a 
Mason's Lodge. He says that the distribution of the several 
parts of the temple of the Jews represented all nature, particularly 
the parts most apparent of it, as the sun, the moon, the planets, the 
zodiac, the earth, the elements ; and that the system of the world 
was retraced there by numerous ingenious emblems. These, in all 
probability, are, what Josiah, in his ignorance, calls the abomina- 
tions of the Zidonians.* Every thing, however, drawn from this 
temple,| and applied to Masonry, still refers to the worship of the 

* Smith, in speaking of a Lodge, says, when the Lodge is revealed to an en- 
tering Mason, it discovers to him a representation of the world ; in which, from 
the wonders of nature, we are led to contemplate her great Original, and wor- 
ship him from his mighty works ; and we are thereby also moved to exercise 
those moral and social virtues which become mankind as the servants of the 
great Architect of the world. 

f It may not be improper here to observe, that the law called the law of 
Moses could not have been in existence at the time of building this temple. 
Here is the likeness of things in heaven above and in the earth beneath. And 
we read in 1 Kings, chap. 6, 7, that Solomon made cherubs and cherubims, that 
he carved all the walls of the house round about with cherubims and palm- 
trees, and open flowers, and that he made a molten sea, placed on twelve oxen, 
and the ledges of it were ornamented with lions, oxen, and cherubims j all this 
is contrary to the lav/, called the law of Moses. 



ORiGlN OF FREE-MASONRY. 



319 



sun, htorever corrupted or mi: understood by the Jews, and, con- 
sequently, to the religion of the Druids. 

Another circumstance, wh h shows' ; ! at Masonrv is deviled 
from some ancient system, prior to, and unconnected with, the 
Christian religion, is the chronology, or method of counting time, 
used ay the Masons in the records of their lodges. They make 
no use of what is called the Chr stian era ; d they reckon their 
months numerically j as the ancient Egyptians d i, and as the 
Quakers do now. I have by me, a record of a French lodge, 
at the time the late Duke of Orleans, then Duke de Chartres, vas 
Grand Master of Masonry in France. It begins as follows : 
" Le irentieme jour due sixieme mo s de fan de la V. L. cinq, mil 
sept cent soixante. frois that is, the thirteenth day of the sixth 
month of the year of the venerable Lodge, five thousand seven 
hundred and seventy-three. By what I observe in English books of 
Masonry, the English Masons use the initials A. L. and not V. L. 
By A. L. they mean in the year of the Lodge,* as the Christians 
by A. D. mean in the year of our Lord. But A. L. like V. L. 
refers to the same chronological era, that is, to the supposed time 
of the creation. In the chapter on the origin of the Christian 
religion, I have shown that the cosmogany, that is, the account of 
the creation, with which the book of Genesis opens 7 has been taken 
and mutilated from the Zend-Avista of Zoroaster, and is fixed as 
a preface to the Bible, after the Jews returned fr->m captivity in 
Babylon, and that the rabbins of the Jews do not hold their account 
in Genesis to be a foot, but mere allegory. The six thousand 
years in the Zend-Avista, is changed or interpolated into six days 
in the account of Genesis. The Masons appear to have chosen 
the same period, and perhaps to avoid the suspicion and persecu- 
tion of the church, have adopted the era of the world, as the era of 
Masonry. The V. L. of the French, and A. L. of the English 
Mason, answer to the A. M. Anno Mundi, or year of the world. 

Though the Masons have taken many of their ceremonies and 
hieroglyphics from the ancient Egyptians, it is certain they have 
not taken their chronology from thence. If they had, the church 
would soon have sent them to the stake ; as the chronology of 

* V. L. used by French Masons, are the initials of Vraie Lumiere, true light : 
and A. L. used by the English, are the initials of Anno Lucis, in the year of 
light. But, as in both cases, as Mr. Paine observes, reference is had to the sup- 
posed time of the creation, his mistake is of no consequence. — Editor, 



820 ORIGIN OF. FREE-MASONRY. ' 

the Egyptians, like that of the Chinese, goes many iy \ousanc| 
years beyond the Bible chronology. 

The religion of the Druids, as before said, was the same as the 
religion of the ancient Egyptians. The priests of Egypt were the 
professors and teachers of science, and were styled priests of 
Heliopolis, that is, of the city of the sun. The Druids in Europe, 
who were the same order of men, have thei - na e from the Teu- 
tonic or ancient German languag ; the Germans being anciently 
called Teutones. The word Druid signifies a wise man. In. 
Persia they were called magi, which signifies the same thing. 

" ^gypt' " savs Smith, " from whence we derive many of our 
mysteries, has always borne a distinguished rank in history, and 
was once celebrated above ail others for its antiquities, learning, 
opulence and fertility. In their system, their principal hero-gods, 
Osiris and Isis, theologically represented the Supreme Being and 
universal nature ; and physically the two great celestial lumi- 
naries, the sun and the moon, by whose influence all nature was 
actuated. The experienced brethren of the society, (says Smith 
in a note to this passage) are well informed what affinity these 
symbols bear to Masonry, and why they are used in all Masonic 
Lodges." 

In speaking of the apparel of the Masons in their Lodges, part 
of which, as we see in their public processions, is a white leather 
apron, he says, " the Druids were apparelled in white at the time 
of their sacrifices nd solemn offices. The Egyptian priests oi 
Osiris wore snow-white cotton. The Grecian and most othei 
priests wore white garments. As Masons, we regard the princi- 
ples of those who ivere the first worshipers of the true God, imi- 
tate their apparel, and assume the badge of innocence. 

" The Egyptians," continues Smith, " in the earliest ages con- 
stituted a great number of Lodges, but with assiduous care kept 
their secrets of Masonry from all strangers. These secrets have 
been imperfectly handed down to us by tradition only, and ought 
to be kept undiscovered to the labourers, craftsmen, and appren- 
tices, till by good behaviour and long study, they become better 
acquainted in geometry and the liberal arts, and thereby qualified 
for Masters and Wardens, which is seldom or ever the case with 
English Masons." 

Under the head of Free-Masonrv, itten by the astronomer 
Lalande, in the French Encyclopedia, I expected from his great 



ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY* 



321 



knowledge in astronomy, to have found much information on the 
origin of Masonry ; for what connection can there be between 
any institution and the sun and twelve signs of the zodiac, if there 
be not something in that institution, or in its origin, that has refer- 
ence to astronomy. Every thing used as an hieroglyphic, has 
reference to the subject and purpose for which it is used ; and we 
are not to suppose the Free-Masons, among whom are many very 
learned and scientific men, to be such idiots as to make use of 
astronomical signs without some astronomical purpose. 

But I was much disappointed in my expectation from Lalande. 
In speaking of the origin of Masonry, he says, "L' origine de la 
maconnerie seperd, comme tant d'autres dansVohscurite des temps-" 
that is, the origin of Masonry, like many others, loses itself in the 
obscurity of time. When I came to this expression, I supposed 
Lalande a Mason, and on enquiry found he was. This passing 
over saved him from the embarrassment which Masons are under 
respecting the disclosure of their origin, and which they are sworn 
to conceal. There is a society of Masons in Dublin who take 
the name of Druids ; these Masons must be supposed to have a 
reason for taking that name. 

I come now to speak of the cause of secrecy used by the 
Masons. 

The natural source of secrecy is fear. When any new religion 
over-runs a former religion, the professors of the new become the 
persecutors of the old. We see this in all the instances that his- 
tory brings before us. When Hilkiah the priest, and Shaphan the 
scribe, in the reign of King Josiah, found, or pretended to find the 
law, called the law of Moses, a thousand years after the time of 
Moses, and it does not appear from the 2d book of Kings, chap- 
ters 22, 23, that such law was ever practiced or known before the 
time of Josiah, he established that law as a national religion, and 
put all the priests of the sun to death. When the Christian reli- 
gion over-ran the Jewish religion, the Jews were the continual 
subjects of persecution in all Christian countries. When the 
Protestant religion in England over-ran the Roman Catholic reli- 
gion, it was made death for a Catholic priest to be found in Eng- 
land. As this has been the case in all the instances we have any 
knowledge of, we are obliged to admit it with respect to the case 
in question, and that when the Christian religion over-ran the reli- 
gion of the Druids in Italy, ancient Gaul, Britain, and Ireland, the 

41 



322 



ORIGIN OP FREE-toASaNKTcV 



Druids became the subjects of persecution. This would naturally 
and necessarily oblige such of them as remained attached to their 
original religion to meet in secret, and under the strongest injunc- 
tions of secrecy. Their safety depended upon it. A false bro- 
ther might expose the lives of many of them to destruction ; and 
from the remains of the religion of the Druids, thus preserved, 
arose the institution, which, to avoid the name ofDruidj took that 
of Mason, and practised, under this new name, the rights and 
ceremonies of Druids. 



LETTER 



TO 

SAMUEL ADAMS. 



— oojoc— 

MY DEAR AND VENERABLE FRIEND, 

I received \yith great pleasure your friendly and affectionate 
letter of Nov. 30th, and I thank you also for the frankness of it. 
Between men in pursuit of troth, and whose object is the happi- 
ness of man both here and hereafter, there ought to be no reserve. 
Even error has a claim to indulgence, if not to respect, when it is 
believed to he truth. I ani obliged to you for your affectionate 
remembrance of what you style my services in awakening the pub- 
lic mind to a declaration of independence, and supporting it after 
it was declared. I also, like you, have often looked back on those 
times, and have thought, that if independence had not been de- 
clared at the time it was, the public mind could not have been 
brought up to it afterwards. It will immediately occur to you, 
who were so intimately acquainted with the situation of things at 
that time, that I allude to the black times of seventy-six ; for though 
I know, and you my friend aiso know, they were no other than the 
natural consequences of the military blunders of that campaign, 
the country might have viewed them as proceeding from a natural 
inability to support its cause against the enemy, and have sunk un- 
der the despondency of that misconceived idea. This was the 
impression against which it was necessary the country should b@ 
strongly animated. 



324 



LETTER T© 



I now eome to the second part of your letter, on which I shall 
be as frank with you as you are with me. " But {say you) when 
I heard you had turned your mind to a defence of infidelity, I felt 
myself much astonished," &c. What, my good friend, do you 
call believing in God infidelity ? for that is the great point mention- 
ed in the Age of Reason against all divided beliefs and allegori- 
cal divinities. The Bishop of Llandaff (Dr. Watson) not only ac- 
knowledges this, but pays me some compliments upon it, in his 
answer to the second part of that work. "There is (says he) a 
philosophical sublimity in some of your ideas, when speaking of 
the Creator of the Universe." 

What then, (my much esteemed friend, for I do not respect 
you the less because we differ, and that perhaps not much, in re- 
ligious sentiments,) what, I ask, is the thing called infidelity ? If 
we go back to your ancestors and mine, three or four hundred 
years ago, for we must have fathers, and grandfathers or we should 
not have been here, we shall find them praying to saints and vir- 
gins, and believing in purgatory and transubstantiation ; and there- 
fore, all of us are infidels according to our forefather's belief. 
If we go back to times more ancient we shall again be infidels ac- 
cording to the belief of some other forefathers. 

The case, rny friend, is, that the world has been overrun with 
fable and creed of human invention, with sectaries of whole 
nations against other nations, and sectaries of those sectaries in 
each of them against each other. Every sectary, except the 
Quakers, have been persecutors. Those who fled from perse- 
cution, persecuted in their turn, and it is this confusion of creeds 
that has filled the world with persecution, and deluged it with 
blood. Even the depredation on your commerce by the Barbary 
powers, sprang from the crusades of the church against those 
powers. It was a war of creed against creed, each boasting of 
God for its author, aud reviling each other with the name of in- 
fidel. If I do not believe as you believe, it proves that you do 
not believe as I believe, and this is all that it proves. 

There is, however, one point of union wherein all religions 
meet, and that is in the first article of every man's creed, and 
of every nation's creed, that has any creed at all, I believe in 
God. Those who rest here, and there are mdlions who do, can- 
not be wrong as far as their creed goes. Those who choose to go 
further may be wrong, for it is impossible that all can be right, 



SAMUEL AB1MS. <32fi. 

since there is so much contradiction among them. The first, 
therefore, are, in my opinion, on the safest side. 

I presume you are so far acquainted with ecclesiastical history 
as to know, and the bishop who has answered me has been obliged 
to acknowledge the fact, that the Books that compose the New- 
Testament, were voted by yeas and nays to be the Word of God, 
as you now vote a law, by the Popish Coun lis of Nice and Lao- 
docia, about fourteen hundred and fifty years ago. With respect 
to the fact there is no dispute, neither do I mention it for the sake 
of controversy. This vote may appear authority enough to some, 
and not authority enough to others. It is proper, however, that 
every body should know the fact. 

With respect to the Age of Reason, which you so much con- 
demn, and that, I believe, without having read it, for you say only 
that you heard of it, I will inform you of a circumstance, because 
you cannot know it by other means. 

I have said in the first page of the first part of that work, that 
it had long been my intention to publish my thoughts upon re- 
ligion, but that I had reserved it to a later time of life. I have 
now to inform you why I wrote it, and published it at the time' I 
did. 

In the first place, I saw my life in continual danger. My 
friends were falling as fast as the guillotine could cut their heads 
off, and as I expected every day the same fate, I resolved to be- 
gin my work. I appeared to myself to be on my death bed, for 
death was on every side of me, and I had no time to lose. 
This accounts for my writing at the time I did, and so nicely did 
the time and intention meet, that I had not finished the first part of 
the work more than six hours before I was arrested and taken to 
prison. Joel Barlow was with me, and knows the fact. 

In the second place, the people of France were running head- 
long into atheism, and I had the work translated and published in 
their own language, to stop them in that career, and fix them to the 
first article (as I have before said) of every in n's creed, who has 
any creed at all, / believe in God. I endangered my own life, in 
the first place, by opposing in the Convention the executing of the 
king, and labouring to show they were trying the monarch and not 
the man, and that the crimes imputed to him were the crimes of 
the monarchial system ; and endangered it a second time by 
epposing atheism, and yet some of your priests, for I do not be- 



326 LETTER TO 

lieve that all are perverse, cry out, in the war-whoop of monarchal 
priest-craft, what an infidel ! what a wicked man is Thomas 
Paine ! They might as well add, for he believes in God, and is 
against shedding blood. 

But all this war-whoop of the pulpit has some concealed object. 
Religion is not the cau;-e, but is the stalking horse. They put it 
s fo.-ward to conceal themselves behind it. It is not a secret that 
there has been a party composed of the leaders of the Federalists, 
for I do not include all Federalists with their leaders, who have 
been working by various means for several years past, to over- 
turn the Federal Constitution established on the representative 
system, and place government in the new world on the corrupt 
system of the old. To accomplish this a large standing army was 
necessary, and as a pretence for such an army, the danger of a 
foreign invasion must be bellowed forth, from the pulpit, from the 
press, and by their public orators. 

I am not of a disposition inclined to suspicion. It is in its na- 
ture a mean and cowardly passion, and -upon the whole, even admit- 
ting error into the case, it is better, 1 am sure it is more generous 
to- be wrong on the side of confidence, than. on the side of sus- 
picion. But I know as a fact, that the English Government dis- 
tributes annually fifteen hundred pounds sterling among the Pres- 
byterian ministers in England, and one hundred among those of 
Ireland ;* and when I hear of the strange discourses of some of 
your ministers and professors of colleges I cannot, as the Qua- 
kers say, find freedom in my mind to acquit them. Their anti-re- 
volutionary doctrines invite suspicion, even against one's will, and 
in spite of one's charity to believe well of them. 

As you have given me one Scripture phrase, I will give you 
another for those ministers. It is said in Exodus chapter xxiii, 
verse 28, " Thou shait not revile the Gods, nor curse the ruler of 
thy people." But those ministers, such I mean as Dr. Emmons, 
curse ruler and people both, for the majority are, politically, the 
people, and it is those wfio have chosen the ruler whom they curse. 

As to the first part of the verse that of not reviling the Gods, 
at makes no part of my Scripture : 1 have but one God. 

* There must undoubtedly be a very gross mistake in respect to the amount 
said to be expended ; the sums intended to be expressed were probably fifteen 
hundred thousand, and one hundred thousand pounds. — Editor. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



327 



Since I began this letter, for I write it by piecemeals as I ha^e 
leisure, I have seen the four letters that passed between you and 
John Adams. In your first letter you say. "Let divines and 
philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavours to rc- 
novate the age, by inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and 
love of the Deity and universal philanthropy." Why, my dear 
friend, this is exactly my religion, and is the whole of it. That 
you may have an idea that the Age of Reason (for I believe you 
have not read it) inculcates this reverential fear and love of the 
Deity, I will give you a paragraph from it. 

" Do we want to contemplate his power 1 We see it in the im- 
mensity of the Creation. Do we want to contemplate his wis- 
dom? We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incom- 
prehensible whole is governed. Do we want to contemplate his 
munificence 1 We see it in the abundance with which he fills the 
earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy ? We see it in his 
not withholding that abundance even from the unthankful." 

As I am fully with you in your first part, that respecting the 
Deity, so am I in your second, that of universal philanthropy ; 
by which I do not mean merely the sentimental benevolence of 
wishing well, but the practical benevolence of doing good. We 
cannot serve the Deity in the manner we serve those who cannot 
do without that service. He needs no services from us. We can 
add nothing to eternity. But it is in our power to render a service 
acceptable to him, and that is, not by praying, but by endeavouring 
to make his creatures happy. A man does not serve God when 
he prays, for it is himself he is trying to serve ; and as to hiring 
or paying men to pray, as if the Deity needed instruction, it is in 
my opinion an abomination. One good school-master is of more 
use and of more value than a load of such parsons as Dr. 
Emmons, and some others. 

You, my dear and much respected friend, are now far in the 
vale of years ; I have yet, I believe, some years in store, for I 
have a good state of health and a happy mind : I take care of 
both, by nourishing the first with temperance, and the latter with 
abundance. 

This I believe you will allow to be the true philosophy of life, 
You will see by my third letter to the citizens of the United States, 
that I have been exposed to, and preserved through many dan- 
gers ; but, instead of buffeting the Deity with prayers, as if I dis- 



* 



328 



LEtTlR TO SAMUEL ADAMS. 



trusted him, or must dictate to him, I reposed myself on his pro** 
tection : and you, my friend, will find, even in your last moments, 
more consolation in the silence of resignation than in the mur- 
muring wish of prayer. 

In everything which you say in your second letter to John 
Adams, respecting our rights as men and citizens in this world, I 
am perfectly with you. On other points we have to answer to our 
Creator and not to each other. The key of heaven is not in the 
keeping of any sect, nor ought the road to it to be obstructed by 
any. Our relation to each other in this world is, as men, and th© 
man who is a friend to man and to his rights, let his religious 
opinions be what they may, is a good citizen, to whom I can give, 
as I ought to do, and as every other ought, the right hand of fellow- 
ship, and to none with more hearty good will, my dear friend, than 
to you. 

THOMAS PAINE. 

Federal City, Jem. 1, 1803. 



EXTRACT FROM A 

LETTER TO ANDREW A. DEAN- 



Respected Friend, 

I received your friendly letter, for which I am obliged to you. It 
is three weeks ago to day (Sunday, Aug. 15,) that I was struck 
with a fit of an apoplexy, that deprived me of all sense and mo- 
tion. I had neither pulse nor breathing, and the people about me 
supposed me dead. I had felt exceedingly well that day, and had 
just taken a slice of bread and butter, for supper, and was going to 
bed. The fit took me on the stairs, as suddenly as if I had been 
shot through the head ; and I got so very much hurt by the fall, 
that I have not been able to get in and out of bed since that day, 
otherwise than being lifted out in a blanket, by two persons ; yet 
all this while my mental faculties have remained as perfect as I 
ever enjoyed them. T consider the scene I have passed through 
as an experiment on dying, and I find that death has no terrors for 
me. As to the people called Christians, they have no evidence 
that their religion is true.| There is no more proof that the Bible 
is the word of God, than that the Koran of Mahomet is the word 
of God. It is education makes all the difference. Man, before 
he begins to think for himself, is as much the child of habit in 
Creeds as he is in ploughing and sowing. Yet creeds, like opinions, 
prove nothing. 

* Mr. Dean rented Mr. Paine's farm at New Roehelle. 

\ Mr. Paine's entering; upon the subject of religion on this occasion, it may 
be presumed was occasioned by the following passage in Mr. Dean's letter to 
him, viz : ^ 

" I have read with good attention your manuscript on dreams, and examin- 
ation on the prophecies in the Bible. I am now searching the old prophecies, 
and comparing the same to those said to be quoted in the New Testament. 1 
confess the comparison is a matter worthy of our serious attention ; I know not 
the result till I finish ; then, if you be living, I shall communicate the same to 
you ; { hope to be with you soon." 

42 



Where is the evidence that the person called Jesus Christ is the 
begotten Son of God ? The case admits not of evidence either 
to our senses or our mental faculties : neither has God given tc 
man any talent by which such a thing is comprehensible. It can- 
not therefore be an object for faith to act upon, for faith is nothing 
more than an assent the mind gives to something it sees cause to 
believe is fact. But priests, preachers, and fanatics, put imagina- 
tion in the place of faith, and it is the nature of the imagination to 
believe without evidence. 

If Joseph the carpenter dreamed, (as the book of Matthew* 
chap. 1st, says he did,) that his betrothed wife, Mary, was with 
child, by the Holy Ghost, and that an angel told him so ; I am not 
obliged to put faith in his dream, nor do I put any, for I put no 
faith in my own dreams, and I should be weak and foolish indeed 
to put faith in the dreams of others. 

The Christian religion is derogatory to the Creator in all its 
articles. It puts the Creator in an inferior point of view, and 
places the Christian Devil above him. It is he, according to the 
absurd story in Genesis, that outwits the Creator, in the garden 
of Eden, and steals from him his favorite creature, man, and, at 
last, obliges him to beget a son, and put that son to death, to get 
man back again, and this the priests of the Christian religion, call 
redemption. 

Christian authors exclaim against the practice of offering up hu- 
man sacrifices, which, they say, is done in some countries ; and 
those authors make those exclamations without ever reflec ting that 
their own doctrine of salvation is founded on a human sacrifice* 
They are saved, they say, by the blood of Christ. The Christian 
religion begins with a dream and ends with a murder. 

As I am now well enough to sit up some hours in the day r 
though not well enough to get up without help, I employ myself as 
I have always done, in endeavouring to bring man to the right use 
of the reason that God has given him, and to direct his mind im- 
mediately to his Creator, asd not to fanciful secondary beings 
called mediators, as if God was superannuated or ferocious. 

As to the book called the Bible, it is blasphemy to call it the 
word of God. It is a book of lies and contradiction, and a history 
of bad times and bad men. There is but a few good characters 
in the whole book. The fable of Christ and his twelve apostles, 
which is a parody on the sun and the twelve signs of the Zodiac, 



LETTER TO MR. DEAN. 



331 



copied from the ancient religions of the eastern world, is the least 
twrtful part. Every thing told of Christ has reference to the sun. 
His reported resurrection is at sunrise, and that on the first day of 
the week ; that is, on the day anciently dedicated to the sun, and 
from thence called Sunday ; in latin Dies Solis, the day of the 
sun ; as the next day, Monday, is Moon-day. But there is no room 
in a letter to explain these things. 

While man keeps to the belief of one God, his reason unites 
with his creed. He is not shocked with contradictions and horrid 
stories. His bible is the heavens and the earth. He beholds his 
Creator in all his works, and every thing he beholds inspires him 
with reverence and gratitude. From the goodness of God to all, 
he learns his duty to his fellow-man, and stands self-reproved 
when he transgresses it. Such a man is no persecutor. 

But when he multiplies his creed with imaginary things, of 
which he can have neither evidence nor conception, such as the 
tale of the garden of Eden, the talking serpent, the fall of man, 
the dreams of Joseph the carpenter, the pretended resurrection 
and ascension, of which there is even no historical relation, for no 
tiistorian of those times mentions such a thing, he gets into the 
pathless region of confusion, and turns either frantic or hypocrite. 
He forces his mind, and pretends to believe what he does not be^ 
lieve. This is in general the case with the methodists. Their 
religion is all creed and no morals. 

I have now my friend given you a fac simile of my mind on the 
subject of religion and creeds, and my wish is, that you make this 
letter as publicly known as you find opportunities of doing. 

Yours, in friendship, 

THOMAS PAINE. 

N. Y. Aug. 1806. 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 

EXTRACTED FROM THE " PROSPECT, OR VIEW OF THE MORAL 
WORLD," A PERIODICAL WORK, EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY 
ELI Id U PALMER, AT NEW-YORK, IN THE YEAR l804. 



The following fugitive pieces were written by Mr. Paine occa- 
sionally to pass off an idle hour, and communicated for the Pros* 
pect, to aid his friend, Mr. Palmer, in support of that publication. 
Perhaps, in some cases, it may appear that the same ideas have 
been expressed in his other works ; but, if so, the various points 
of view, in which they are here placed, it is presumed, will not 
fail to give an interest to these miscellaneous remarks. 

The same signatures are continued as were subscribed to the 
original communications. 



REMARKS ON R. HALL'S SERMONS. 

[T7ie follovnng piece, obligingly communicated by JWr. Paine, foif 
the Prospect, is full of that acuteness of mind, perspicuity of 
expression, and clearness of discernment for which this excellent 
author is so remarkable in all his writiugs.~\ 
Robert Hall, a protestant minister in England, preached and 
published a sermon against what he calls " JWodern infidelity." A 
copy of it was sent to a gentleman in America, with a request for 
his opinion thereon. That gentleman sent it to a friend of his in 
New- York, with the request written on the cover — and this last 
sent it to Thomas Paine, who wrote the following observations on 
the blank leaf at the end of the sermon. 

The preacher of the foregoing sermon speaks a great deal about 
infidelity, but does not define what he means by it. His harangue 
is a general exclamation. Every thing, I suppose, that is not in 



/ 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 333 

his creed is infidelity with him, and his creed is infidelity with me. 
Infidelity is believing falsely. If what christians believe is not 
true, it is the christians that are the infidels. 

The point between deists and christians is not about doctrine, 
but about fact —for if the things believed by the christians to be 
facts, are not facts, the doctrine founded thereon falls of itself. 
There js such a book as the Bible, but is it a fact that the bible is 
revealed religion ? The christians cannot prove it is. They put 
tradition in place of evidence, and tradition is not proof. If it 
were, the reality of witches could be proved by the same kind of 
evidence. 

The bible is a history of the times of which it speaks, and history 
is not revelation. The obscene and vulgar stories in the bible 
are as repugnant to our ideas of the purity of a divine Being, as the 
horrid cruelties and murders it ascribes to him, are repugnant to 
our ideas of his justice. It is the reverence of the Deists for the 
attributes of the Deitv, that causes them to reject the bible. 

Is the account which the christian church gives of the person 
called Jesus Christ, a fact or a fable ? Is it a fact that he was be- 
gotten by the Holy Ghost 1 The christians cannot prove it, for the 
case does not admit of proof. The things called miracles in the 
bible, such, for instance, as raising the dead, admitted, if trwy of 
occular demonstration, but the story of the conception of Jesus 
Christ in the womb is a case beyond miracle, for it did not admit 
of demonstration. Mary, the reputed mother of Jesus, who must 
be supposed to know best, never said so herself, and all the evi- 
dence of it is, that the book of Matthew says, that Joseph dreamed 
an angel told him so. Had an old maid of two or three hundred 
years of age, brought forth a child, it would have been much bet- 
ter presumptive evidence of a supernatural conception, than Mat- 
thew's story of Joseph's dream about his young wife. 

Is it a fact that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world, and 
how is it proved? If a God he 'could not die, and as a man he 
could not redeem, how then is this redemption proved to be fact? 
It is said that Adam eat of the forbidden fruit, commonly called an 
apple, and thereby subjected himself and all his posterity for ever 
to eternal damnation. This is worse than visiting the sins of the 
fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations, 
But how was the death of Jesus Christ to affect or alter the case ? — 
Did God thirst for blood 1 If so, would it not have been better to 



334 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



have crucified Adam at once upon the forbidden tree, and made a 
new man? Would not this have been more creator like than re- 
pairing the old one 1 Or, did God, when he made Adam, suppos- 
ing the story to be true, exclude himself from the right of mak- 
ing another ? Or impose on himself the necessity of breeding from 
the old stock 1 Priests should first prove facts, and deduce doc- 
trines from them afterwards. But, instead of this, they assume 
every thing and prove nothing. Authorities drawn from the bible 
are no more than authorities drawn from other books, unless it can 
be proved that the bible is revelation. 

This story of the redemption will not stand examination. That 
man should redeem himself from the sin of eating an apple, by 
committing a murder on Jesus Christ, is the strangest system of 
religion ever set up. Deism is perfect purity compared with this. 
It is an established principle with the quakers not to shed blood — 
suppose, then, all Jerusalem had been qnakers when Christ lived, 
there would have been nobody to crucify him, and in that case, if 
man is redeemed by his blood, which is the belief of the church, 
there could have been no redemption — and the people of Jerusa- 
lem must all have been damned, because they were too good to 
commit murder. The christian system of religion is an outrage 
on common sense. Why is man afraid to think ? 

Why do not the christians, to be consistent, make saints of Ju- 
das iind Pontius Pilate, for they were the persons who accom- 
plished the act of salvation. The merit of a sacrifice, if there can 
be any merit in it, was never in the thing sacrificed, but in the per- 
sons offering up the sacrifice — and, therefore, Judas and Pontius 
Pilate ought to stand first on the calendar of saints. 

THOMAS PAINE, 



OF THE WORD RELIGION, 

AND OTHER WORDS OF UNCERTAIN SIGNIFICATION. 



The word religion is a word of forced application when used 
with respect to the worship of God. The root of the word is the 
latin verb ligo, to tie or bind. From ligo, comes religo, to tie or 
bind over again, or make more fast — from religo, comes the 



'illSCELLANEOUS PIECES. 33S> 

substantive religio, which, with the addition of n makes the English 
substantive religion. The French use the word properly — when 
a woman enters a convent she is called a noviciat, that is, she is 
upon trial or probation. When she takes the oath, she is called a 
religieuse, that is, she is tied or bound by that oath to the perform- 
ance of it. We use the word in the same kind of sense when we 
say we will religiously perform the promise that we make. 

But the word, witho it referring t<5 its etymology, has, in the 
manner it is used, no definitive meaning, because it does not desig- 
nate what religion a man is of. There is the religion of the Chi- 
nese, of the Tartars, of the Bramins, of the Persians, of the Jews, 
of the Turks, &c. 

The word Christianity is equally as vague as the word religion. 
No two sectaries can agree what it is. It is a lo here, and lo there. 
The two principal sectaries, Papists and Protestants, have often 
cut each other's throats about it : — The Papists call the Protest- 
ants heretics, and the Protestants call the Papists idolaters. The 
minor sectaries have shown the same spirit of rancour, but, as the 
civil law restrains them from blood, they content themselves with 
preaching damnation against each other. 

The word pvotestant has a positive signification in the sense it is 
used. It means protesting against the authority of the Pope, and 
this is the only article in which the protestants agree. In every 
other sense, with respect to religion, the word protestant is as 
vague as the word christian. When we say an episcopalian, a 
presbyterian, a baptist, a quaker, we know what those persons are, 
and what tenets they hold — but when we say a christian, we know 
he is not a Jew nor a Mahometan, but we know not if he be a 
trinitarian or an anti-trinitarian, a believer in what is called the im- 
maculate conception, or a disbeliever, a man of seven sacraments* 
or of two sacraments, or of none. The word christian describes 
what a man is not, but not what he is. 

The word Theology, from Theos, the Greek word for God, and 
meaning the study and knowledge of God, is a word, that strictly 
speaking, belongs to Theists or Deists, and not to the christians. 
The head of the christian church is the person called Christ — but 
the head of the church of the Theists, or Deists, as they are more 
commonly called, from Deus, the latin word for God, is God him- 
self, and therefore the word Theology belongs to that church which 
lias Theos, or God, for its head, and not to the christian church 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



which has the person called Christ for its head. Their technical 
word is Christianity, and they cannot agree what Christianity is. 

The words revealed religion, and natural religion, require also 
explanation. They are both invented terms, contrived by the 
church for the support of priest-craft. With respect to the first, 
there is no evidence of any such thing, except in the universal 
revelation that God has made of his power, his wisdom, his good- 
ness, in the structure of the universe, and in all the works of crea- 
tion. We have no cause or ground from any thing we behold in 
those works, to suppose God would deal partially by mankind, and 
reveal knowledge to one nation and withhold it from another, and 
then damn them for not knowing it. The sun shines an equal 
quantity of light all over the world — and mankind in all ages and 
countries are endued witrr reason, and blessed with sight, to read 
the visible works of God in the creation, and so intelligent is this 
book that he that runs may read. We admire the wisdom of the 
ancients, yet they had no bibles, nor books, called revelation. 
They cultivated the reason that God gave them, studied him in his 
works, and arose to eminence. 

As to the Bible, whether true or fabulous, it is a history, and 
history is not revelation. If Solomon had seven hundred wives, 
and three hundred concubines, and if Samson slept in Delilah's 
lap, and she cut his hair off, the relation of those things is mere 
history, that needed no revelation from heaven to tell it ; neither 
does it need any revelation to tell us that Samson was a fool for 
his pains, and Solomon too. 

As to the expressions so often used in the Bible, that the word 
of the Lord came to such an one, or such an one, it was the 
fashion of speaking in those times, like the expression used by a 
quaker, that the spirit moveth him, or that used by priests, that they 
have a call. We ought not to be deceived by phrases because 
they are ancient. But if we admit the supposition that God would 
condescend to reveal himself in words we ought not to believe it 
would be in such idle and profligate stories as are in the Bible, and 
it is for this reason, among others which our reverence to God in- 
spires, that the Deists deny that the book called the bible is the 
word of God, or that it is revealed religion. 

With respect to the term natural religion, it is, upon the face of 
it, the opposite of artificial religion, and it is impossible for any 
man to be certain that what is called revealed religion, is not artt- 



BlSfcELLANEOtTS PIECES. 



ticiai. Man has the power of making books, inventing stories 
of God, and calling them revelation, or the word of God. The 
Koran exists as an instance that this can be done, and we must be 
credulous indeed to suppose that this is the only instance, and Ma- 
homet the only impostor. Tne Jews could match him, and the 
church of Rome couid overmatch the Jews. The Mahometans 
believe the Koran, the Christians believe the Bible, and it is edu- 
cation makes all the difference. 

Books, whether Bibles or Korans, carry no evidence of being 
the work of any other power than man. It is only that which man 
cannot do that carries the evidence of being the work of a superior 
power. Man could not invent and make a universe — he could not 
invent nature, for nature is of divine origin. It is the laws by 
which the universe is governed. When, therefore, we look through 
nature up to nature's God, we are in the right road of happiness, 
but when we trust to books as the word of God, and confide in 
them as revealed religion, we are afloat on the ocean of uncer- 
tainty, and shatter into contending factions. The term, therefore 9 
natural religion, explains itself to be divine religion, and the term 
revealed religion involves in it the suspicion of being artificial. 

To show the necessity of understanding the meaning of words, 
I will mention an instance of a minister, 1 believe of the epis- 
copalian church of Newark, in Jersey. He wrote and published a 
book, and entitled it, " An Antidote to Deism." An antidote to 
Deism,, must be Atheism. It has no other antidote — for what can 
be an antidote to the belief of a God, but the disbelief of God. 
Under the tuition of such pastors, what but ignorance and false 
information can be expected. T. P= 



OF CAIN AND ABEL, 



The story of Cain and Abel is told in the fourth chapter of Cre* 
nesis ; Cain was the elder brother, and Abel the younger, and 
Cain killed Abel. The Egyptian story of Typhon and Osiris, 
sad the Jewish story, in Genesis, of Cain and Abel, have the ap» 

' 43 



MISCELLANEOUS' PIECES. 



pearance of being the same story differently told, and that it eamg 
originally from Egypt. 

In the Egyptian story, Typhon and Osiris are brothers ; Ty~ 
phon is the elder, and Osiris the younger, and Typhon kills Osiris. 
The story is an allegory on darkness and light ; Typhon, the elder 
brother, is darkness, because darkness was supposed to be more 
ancient than light : Osiris is the good light who rules during the 
summer months, and brings forth the fruits of the earth, and is 
the favourite, as Abel is said to have been, for which Typhou 
hates him ; and when the winter comes, and cold and darkness 
overspread the earth, Typhon is represented as having killed 
Osiris out of malice, as Cain is said to have killed Abel. 

The two stories are alike in their circumstances and their event,, 
and are probably but the same story ; what corroborates this opin- 
ion, is, that the fifth chapter of Genesis historically contradicts 
the reality of the story of Cain and Abel in the fourth chapter, for 
though the name of Seth, a son of Adam, is mentioned in the 
fourth chapter, he is spoken of in the fifth chapter as if he was 
the first born of Adam. The chapter begins thus : — 

" This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that 
God created man, in the likeness of God created he him. Male 
and female created he them, and blessed them, and called theis? 
name Adam in the day when they were created. And Adam lived 
an hundred and thirty years and begat a son, in his own likeness 
and after his own image, and called his name Seth*" The rest of 
the chapter goes on with the genealogy. 

Any body reading this chapter, cannot suppose there were any 
sons born before Seih. The chapter begins with what is called the 
creation of Jl&am, and calls itself the book of the generations of 
Jldam, yet no mention is made of such persons as Cain and Abel ; 
one thing, however, is evident on the face of these two chapters,, 
which is, that the same person is not the writer of both ; the most 
blundering historian could not have committed himself in such a 
manner. 

Though I look on every thing in the first ten chapters of Gene- 
sis to be fiction, yet fiction historically told should be consistent, 
whereas these two chapters are not. The Cain and Abel of Gene- 
sis appear to be no other than the ancient Egyptian story of Ty- 
phon and Osiris, the darkness and the light, which answered verv 
well as an allegory without being believed as a fact. 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



33a 



THE TOWER OF BABEL. 



The story of the tower of Babel is told in the eleventh chapter 
of Genesis. It begins thus : — " And the whole earth (it was but 
a very little part o!" it they knew) was of one language and of one 
speech. — And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east, 
that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. 
— And they said one to another, go to, let us make brick and burn 
them thoroughly, and they had brick for stone, and slime had they 
for mortar. — And they said go to, let us build us a city, and a tow- 
er whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, 
lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. — And 
the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the chil- 
dren of men builded. — And the Lord said, behold the people is 
one, and they have all one language, and this they begin to do, 
and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have 
imagined to do. — Go to, let us go down and there confound their 
language, that they may not understand one another's speech. — 
So (that is, by that means') the Lord scattered them abroad from 
thence upon the face of ail the earth, and they left off building the 
city." 

This is the story, and a very foolish inconsistent story it is. In 
the first place, the familiar and irreverend manner in which the 
Almighty is spoken of in this chapter, is offensive to a serious 
mind. As to the project of building a tower whose top should 
reach to heaven, there never could be a people so foolish as to 
have such a notion ; but to represent the Almighty as jealous of 
the attempt, as the writer of the story has done, is adding prophan- 
ation to folly, '* Go to " says the builders, " let us build us a tower 
whose top shall reach to heaven." " Go to," says God, " let us 
go down and confound their language." This quaintness is inde- 
cent, and the reason given for it is worse, for, " now nothing will 
be restrained from them which they have imagined to do." This 
is representing the Almighty as jealous of their getting into heaven*, 



840 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



The story is too ridiculous, even as a fable, to account for the di- 
versity of languages in the world, for which it seems to have beeri 
intended. 

As to the project of confounding their language for the purpose 
of making them separate, it is altogether inconsistent ; because, 
instead of producing this effect, it would, by increasing their diffi- 
culties, render them more necessary to each other, and cause them 
to keep together. Where could they go to better themselves ? 

Another observation upon this story is, the inconsistency of it 
with respect to the opinion fhat the bible is the word of God given 
for the information of mankind : for nothing could so effectually 
prevent such a word being known by mankind as confounding their 
language. The people, who after this spoke different languages, 
could no more understand such a word generally, than the builders 
of Babel could understand one another. It would have been ne- 
cessary, therefore, had such word ever been given or intended to 
be given, that the whole earth should be, as they say it was at first* 
of one language and of one speech, and that it should never have 
been confounded. 

The case, however, is, that the bible will not bear examination in 
any part of it, which it would do if it was the word of God. Those 
who most believe it are those who know least about it, and priests 
always take care to keep the inconsistent and contradictory parts 
©ut of sight T. P. 



Of the religion of Deism compared with the Christian Religion^ 
and the superiority of the former over the latter 



Every person, of whatever religious denomination he may be, is 
a Deist in the first article of his Creed. Deism, from the Latin 
word Deus, God, is the belief of a God, and this belief is the first 
article of every man's creed. 

It is on this article, universally consented to by all mankind, that 
the Deist builds his church, and here he rests. Whenever we 
step aside from this article, by mixing it with articles of human in- 
vention, we wonder into a labyrinth of uncertainty and fable and 



"MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 341 

become exposed to every kind of imposition by pretenders to reve- 
lation. The Persian shows the Zendavista of Zoroaster, the law- 
giver of Persia, and calls it the divine law ; the Bramin shows the 
Skastci', revealed, he says, by God to Brama, and given to him out 
of a cloud ; the Jew shows what he calls the law of Moses, given, 
he says, by God, on the Mount Sinai ; the Christian shows a col- 
lection of books and episdes, written by nobody knows who, and 
called the New Testament ; and the Mahometan shows the Koran, 
given, he says, by God to Mahomet : each of these calls itself 
revealed religion, and the only true word of God, and this the fol- 
lowers of each profess to believe from the habit of education, and 
each believes the others are imposed upon. 

But when the divine gift of reason begins to expand itself in the 
mind and calls man to reflection, he then reads and contemplates 
God in his works, and not in the books pretending to be revelation. 
The Creation is the bible of the true believer in God. Every 
thing in this vast volume inspires him with sublime ideas of the 
Creator. The little and paltry, and often obscene, tales of the bible 
sink into wretchedness when put in comparison with this mighty 
work. The Deist needs none of those tricks and shows called 
miracles to confirm his faith, for what can be a greater miracle 
than the Creation itself, and his own existence. 

There is a happiness in Deism, when rightly understood, that is 
not to be found in any other system of religion. All other systems 
have something in them that either shock our reason, or are repug- 
nant to it, and man, if he thinks at all, must stifle his reason in 
order to force himself to believe them. But in Deism our reason 
and our belief become happily united. The wonderful structure 
of the universe, and every thing we behold in the system of the 
creation, prove to us, far better than books can do, the existence of 
a God, and at the same time proclaim his attributes. It is by the 
exercise of our reason that we are enabled to contemplate God in 
his works, and imitate him in his ways. When we see his care 
and goodness extended over all his creatures, it teaches us our 
duty towards each other, while it calls forth our gratitude to him. 
It is by forgetting God in his works, and running after the books 
of pretended reveiation that man has wandered from the straight 
path of duty and happiness, and become by turns the victim of 
doubt and the dupe of delusion. 

Except in the first article in the Christian creed, that of believing 



342 



MISCELLANEOUS PISCESES. 



in God, there is not an article in it but fills the mind with doubf ? 
as to the truth of it, the instant man begins to think. Now every 
article in a creed that is necessary to the happiness and salvation 
of man, ought to be as evident to the reason and comprehension of 
man as the first article is, for God has not given us reason for the 
purpose of confounding us, but that we should use it for our own 
happiness and his glory. 

The truth of the first article is proved by God himself, and is 
universal ; for the creation is of itself demonstration of the exist- 
ence of a Creator. But the second article, that of God's begetting 
a son, is not proved in like manner, and stands on no other autho- 
rity than that of a tale. Certain books in what is called the New 
Testament tell us that Joseph dreamed that the angel told him so. 
(Matthew chap 1. ver. 20.) " And behold the Angel of the Lord 
appeared to Joseph, in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, 
fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is con- 
ceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." The evidence upon this ar- 
ticle bears no comparison with the evidence upon the first article, 
and therefore is not entitled to the same credit, and ought not 
to be made an article in a creed, because the evidence of it is de- 
fective, and what evidence there is, is doubtful and suspicious. 
We do not believe the first article on the authority of books, 
whether called Bibles or Korans, nor yet on the visionary authori- 
ty of dreams, but on the authority of God's own visible works in 
the creation. The nations who never heard of such books, nor of 
such people as Jews, Christians, or Mahometans, believe the exist- 
ence of a God as fully as we do, because it is self evident. The 
wo k of man's hands is a proof of the existence of man as fully as 
his personal appearance would be. When we see a watch, we 
have as positive evidence of the existence of a watch-maker, as 
if we saw him ; and in like manner the creation is evidence to our 
reason and our senses of the existence of a Creator. But there 
is nothing in the works of God that is evidence that he begat a son, 
nor any thing in the system of creation that corroborates such an 
idea, and, therefore, we are not authorized in believing it. 

But presumption can assume any thing, and therefore it makes 
Joseph's dream to be of equal authority with the existence of God, 
and to help it on calls it revelation. It is impossible for the mind 
of man in its serious moments, however it may have been entang- 
led by education, or beset by priest-craft, not to stand still and 



Miscellaneous pieces. 343 

doubt upon the truth of this article and of its creed. But this is 
not all. 

The second article of the Christian creed having brought the 
son of Mary into the world, (and this Mary, according to the chro- 
nological tables, was a girl of only fifteen years of age when this 
son was born,) the next article goes on to account for his being 
begotten, which was, that when he grew a man he should be put to 
death, to expiate, they say, the sin that Adam brought into the 
world by eating an apple or some kind of forbidden fruit. 

But though this is the creed of the church of Rome, from 
whence the protestants borrowed it, it is a creed which that church 
has manufactured of itself, for it is not contained in, nor derived 
from, the book called the New Testament. The four books cal- 
led the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which give, 
or pretend to give, the birth, sayings, life, preaching, and death of 
Jesus Christ, make no mention of what is called the fall of man ; 
nor is the name of Adam to be found in any of those books, which 
it certainly would be if the writers of them believed that Jesus was 
begotten, born, and died for the purpose of redeeming mankind 
from the sin which Adam had brought into the world. Jesus never 
speaks of Adam himself, of the Garden of Eden, nor of what is 
called the fall of man. 

But the Church of Rome having set up its new religion which is 
called Christianity, and invented the creed which it named the 
apostles' creed, in which it calls Jesus the only son of God, con- 
ceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary, things of 
which it is impossible that man or woman can have any idea, and 
consequently no belief but in words ; and for which there is no au- 
thority but the idle story of Joseph's dream in the first chapter of 
Matthew, which any designing imposter or foolish fanatic might 
make. It then manufactured the allegories in the book of Genesis, 
into fact, and the allegorical tree of life and the tree of knowledge 
into real trees, contrary to the belief of the first christians, and fo? 
which there is not the least authority in any of the books of the 
New Testament ; for in none of them is there any mention made 
of such place as the Garden of Eden, nor of any thing that is said 
to have happened there. 

But the church of Rome could not erect the person called Jesus 
into a Saviour of the world without making the allegories in th© 
book of Genesis into fact, though the New Testament, as before 



844 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



observed, gives no authority for it. All at once the allegorical 
tree of knowledge became, according to the church, a real tree, the 
fruit of it real fruit, and the eating of it sinful. As priest-craft was 
always the enemy of knowledge, because priest-craft supports 
itself by keeping people in delusion and ignorance, it was consist- 
ent with its policy to make the acquisition of knowledge a real 
sin. 

The church of Rome having done this, it then brings forward 
Jesus the son of Mary as suffering death to redeem mankind from 
sin, which Adam, it says, had brought into the world by eating the 
fruit of the tree of knowledge. But as it is impossible for reason 
to believe such a story, because it can see no reason for it, nor 
have any evidence of it, the church then tells us we must not re- 
gard our reason but must believe, as it were, and that through thick 
and thin, as if God had given man reason like a plaything, or a 
rattle, on purpose to make fun of him. Reason is the forbidden 
tree of priest-craft, and may serve to explain the allegory of the 
forbidden tree of knowledge, for we may reasonably suppose the 
allegory had some meaning and application at the time it was in- 
vented. It was the practice of the eastern nations to convey their 
meaning by allegory, and relate it in the manner of fact. Jesus 
followed the same method, yet nobody ever supposed the allegory 
or parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the prodigal son, the 
ten virgins, &c. were facts. Why then should the tree of know- 
ledge, which is far more romantic in idea than the parables in the 
!New Testament are, be supposed to be a real tree.* The answer 
to this is, because the church could not make its new fangled sys- 
tem, which it called Christianity, hold together without it. To 
have made Christ to die on account of an allegorical tree would 
have been too bare-faced a fable. 

But the account, as it is given of Jesus in the New Testament, 
even visionary as it is, does not support the creed of the church 
that he died for the redemption of the world. According to that 
account he was crucified and buried on the Friday, and rose again 
in good health on the Sunday morning, for we do not hear that he 
was sick. This cannot be called dying, and is rather making fun 

* The remark of the Emperor Juli'en, on the story of The tree of Knowledge 
is worth observing. " If,"said he, " there ever had been, or could be, a Tree of 
Knowledge, instead of God forbidding man to eat thereof, it would be that of 
which he would order him to eat the most." 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES* 



345 



fcf death than suffering it. There are thousands of men and women 
also, who if they could know they should come back again in good 
health in about thirty-six hours, would prefer such kind of death 
for the sake of the experiment, and to know what the other side of 
the grave was. Why then should that which would be only a voy- 
age of curious amusement to us be magnified into merit and suf- 
fering in him ? If a God he could not suffer death, for immortality 
cannot die, and as a man his death could be no more than the 
death of any other person. 

The belief of the redemption of Jesus Christ is altogether an 
invention of the church of Rome, not the doctrine of the New 
Testament. What the writers of the New Testament attempted 
to prove by the story of Jesus is the resurrection of the same body 
from the grave, which was the belief of the Pharisees, in opposition 
to the Sadducees (a sect of Jews) who denied it. Paul, who was 
brought up a Pharisee, labours hard at this point, for it was the 
creed of his own Pharisaical church. The XV chap. 1st of Corin- 
thians is full of supposed cases and assertions about the resurrec- 
tion of (he same body, but there is not a word in it about redemp- 
tion. This chapter makes part of the funeral service of the Epis- 
copal church. The dogma of the redemption is the fable of priest- 
craft invented since the time the NevvTestament was compiled, and 
the agreeable delusion of it suited with the depravity of immoral 
livers. When men are taught to ascribe all their crimes and vices to 
the temptations of the Devil, and to believe that Jesus, by his death, 
rubs all off and pays their passage to heaven gratis, they become 
as careless in morals as a spendthrift would be of money, were he 
told that his father had engaged to pay off all his scores. It is a 
doctrine, not only dangerous to morals in this world, but to our 
happiness in the next world, because it holds out such a cheap* 
easy, and lazy way of getting to heaven as has a tendency to in- 
duce men to hug the delusion of it to their own injury. 

But there are times when men have serious thoughts, and it is 
at such times, when they begin to think, that they begin to doubt 
the truth of the Christian Religion, and well they may, for it is too 
fanciful and too full of conjecture, inconsistency, improbability, 
and irrationality, to afford consolation to the thoughtful man. 
His reason revolts against his creed. He sees that none of its 
articles are proved, or can be proved. He may believe that such 
a person art is called Jesus (for Christ was not his name) was 

44 



346 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



born and grew to be a man, because it is no more man a natural 
and probable case. But who is to prove he is the son of God ? 
that he was begotten by the Holy Ghost 1 Of these things 
there can be no proof ; and that which admits not of proof y 
and is against the laws of probability, and the order of nature 
which God himself has established, is not an object for belief. 
God has not given man reason to embarrass him, but to prove 
his being imposed upon. 

He may believe that Jesus was crucified, because many others 
were crucified, but who is to prove he was crucified for the sins of 
the world ? This article has no evidence, not even in the New 
Testament ; and if it had where is the proof that the New Tes- 
tament, in relating things neither probable nor proveable, is to be 
believed as true 1 When an article in a creed does not admit of 
proof nor of probability, the salvo is to call it revelation ; but this 
is only putting one difficulty in the place of another, for it is as 
impossible to prove a thing to be revelation as it is to prove that 
Mary was gotten with child by the Holy Ghost. 

Here it is that the religion of Deism is superior to the Christian 
religion. It is free from all those invented and torturing articles 
that shock our reason or injure our humanity, and with which the 
Christian religion abounds. Its creed is pure and sublimely 
simple. It believes in God and there it rests. It honours reason 
as the choicest gift of God to man, and the faculty by which he is 
enabled to contemplate the power, wisdom and goodness of the 
Creator displayed in the creation ; and reposing itself on his 
protection, both here and hereafter, it avoids all presumptuous 
beliefs, and rejects, as the fabulous inventions of men, all books 
pretending to revelation. 

T. P. 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



347 



TO THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY, STYLING 
ITSELF THi^ MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 

The New-York Gazette of the I6ih {August) contains the follow* 
ing article — " On Tuesday, a committee of the JWissionary 
Society, consisting chiefly of distinguished Clergymen, had an 
interview, at the City Hotel, with the chiefs of the Osage tribe 
of Indians, now in this City, {New-York) to whom they pre- 
sented a Bible, together with an Address, the object of which 
was, to inform them that this good book contained the will 
and laws of the GREAT SPIRIT." 



It is to be hoped some humane person will, on account of our 
people on the frontiers, as well as of the Indians, undeceive them 
with respect to the present the Missionaries have made them, and 
which they call a good book, containing, they say, the will and 
laws of the GR R AT SPIRIT. Can those Missionaries suppose 
that the assassination of men, women, and children, and sucking 
infants, related in the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, &c. and 
blasphemously said to be done by the command of the Lord, the 
Great Spirit, can be edifying to our Indian neighbours, or advan- 
tageous to us ? Is not the Bible warfare the same kind of warfare 
as the Indians themselves carry on, that of indiscriminate destruc- 
tion, and against which humanity shudders ; can the horrid exam- 
ples and vulgar obscenity, with which the Bible abounds, improve 
the morals or civilize the manners of the Indians 1 Will they learn 
sobriety and decency from drunken Noah and beastly Lot ; or will 
their daughters be edified by the example of Lot's daughters ? 
Will the prisoners they take in war be treated the better by their 
knowing the horrid story of Samuel's hewing A gag in pieces like 
a block of wood, or David's putting them under harrows of iron ? 
Will not the shocking accounts of the destruction of the Cana- 



348 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



anites, when the Israelites invaded their country, suggest the idea 
that we may serve them in the same manner, or the accounts stir 
them up to do the like to our people on the frontiers, and then 
justify the assassination by the Bible the Missionaries have given 
them 1 Will those Missionary Societies never leave off doing 
misch;ef 1 

In the account which this missionary committee give of their 
interview, they make the chief of the Indians to say, that, " as 
neither he nor his people could read it, he begged that some good 
white man might be sent to instruct them." 

It is necessary the General Government keep a strict eye over 
those Missionary Societies, who, under the pretence of instructing 
the Indians, send spies into their country to find out the best lands. 
No society should be permitted to have intercourse with the Indian 
tribes, nor send any person among them, but with the knowledge 
and consent of the Government. The present administration 
has brought the Indians into a good disposition, and is improving 
them in the moral and civil comforts of life ; but if these self- 
created societies be suffered to interfere, and send their specula- 
ting Missionaries among them, the laudable object of government 
will be defeated. Priests, we know, are not remarkable for doing 
any thing gratis ; they have in general some scheme in every thing* 
they do, either to impose on the ignorant, or derange the opera- 
tions of government. 

A FRIEND TO THE INDIANS. 



OF THE SABBATH DAY OF CONNECTICUT. 



The word Sabbath, means rest, that is, cessation from labour ; 
but the stupid Blue Laws* of Connecticut make a labour of rest, 
for they oblige a person to sit still from sun-rise to sun-set on a 
Sabbath day, which is hard work. Fanaticism made those laws, 

* They were called Blue Laws because they were originally printed on blue 
paper. 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



■349 



and hypocrisy pretends to reverence them, for where such laws 
prevail hypocrisy will prevail also. 

One of those laws says, " No person shall run on a Sabbath- 
day, nor walk in his garden, nor elsewhere, but reverently to and 
from meeting." These fanatical hypocrites forgot -that God dwells 
not in temples made with hands, and that the earth is full of his 
glory. One of the finest scenes and subjects of religious con- 
templation is to walk into the woods and fields, and survey the 
works of the God of the Creation. The wide expanse of heaven, 
the earth covered with verdure, the lofty forest, the waving corn, 
the magnificent roll of mighty rivers, and the murmuring melody 
of the cheerful brooks, are scenes that inspire the mind with grati- 
tude and delight ; but this the gloomy Calvinist of Connecticut, 
must not behold on a Sabbath-day. Entombed within the walls 
of his dwelling, he shuts from his view the temple of creation. 
The sun shines no joy to him. The gladdening voice of nature 
calls on him in vain. He is deaf, dumb, and blind to every thing 
around him that God has made. Such is the Sabbath-day of Con- 
necticut. 

From whence could come this miserable notion of devotion? 
It comes from the gloominess of the Calvinistic creed. If men 
love darkness rather than light, because their works are evil, th 
ulcerated mind of a Calvinist, who sees God only in terror, an 
sits brooding over the scenes of hell and damnation, can have no 
joy in beholding the glories of the creation. Nothing in that 
mighty and wondrous system accords with hi* principles or his 
devotion. He sees nothing there that tells him that God created 
millions on purpose to be damned, and that the children of a span 
long are born t<> burn forever in hell. The creation preaches a 
different doctrine to this. We there see that the care and good- 
ness of God is extended impartially over all the creatures he has 
made. The worm of the earth shares his protection equally with 
the elephant of the desert. The grass that springs beneath our 
feet grows by his bounty as well as the cedars of Lebanon. Every 
thing in the Creation reproaches the Calvinist with unjust ideas of 
God, and disowns the hardness and ingratitude of his principles, 
Therefore he shuns the sight of them on a Sabbath-day. 

AN ENEMY TO CANT AND IMPOSITIO 



350 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT. 



Archbishop Tillotson says, " The difference between the style 
of the Old and New Testament is so very remarkable, that one of 
the greatest sects in the primitive times, did, upon this very ground, 
found their heresy of two Gods, the one evil, fierce, and cruel, 
whom they called the God of the Old Testament ; the other good, 
kind, and merciful, whom they called the God of the New Testa- 
ment ; so great a difference is there between the representations 
that are given of God in the books of the Jewish and Christian 
Religion, as to give, at least, some colour and pretence to an ima- 
gination of two Gods." Thus far Tillotson. 

But the case was, that as the Church had picked out several 
passages from the Old Testament, which she most absurdly and 
falsely calls prophecies of Jesus Christ, (whereas there is no pro- 
phecy of any such person, as any one may see by examining the 
passages and the cases to which they apply,) she was under the 
necessity of keeping up the credit of the Old Testament, because 
if that fell the other would soon follow, and the Christian system 
of faith would soon be at an end. As a book of morals, there are 
several parts of the New Testament that are good ; but they are 
no other than what had been preached in the Eastern world seve- 
ral hundred years before Christ was born. Confucius, the Chi- 
nese philosopher, who lived five hundred years before the time of 
Christ, says, acknowledge thy benefits by the return of benefits but 
never revenge injuries. 

The clergy in Popish countries were cunning enough to know, 
that if the Old Testament was made public, the fallacy of the 
"New, with respect to Christ, would be detected, and they pro- 
hibited the use of it, and always took it away wherever they found 
it. The Deists, on the contrary, always encouraged the reading 
it, that people might see and judge for themselves, that a book so 
full of contradictions and wickedness, could not be the word of 
God, and that we dishonour God by ascribing it to him. 

A TRUE DEIST. 



Miscellaneous pieces, 



351 



Hints towards forming a Society for inquiring into the truth or 
falsehood of ancient history, so far as history is connected with 
systems of religion ancient and modern, 



It has been customary to class history into three divisions, dis- 
tinguished by the names of Sacred, Profane, and Ecclesiastical. 
By the first is meant the Bible ; by the second, the history of 
nations, of men and things ; and by the third, the history of the 
church and its priesthood. 

Nothing is more easy than to give names, and, therefore, mere 
names signify nothing, unless they lead to the discovery of some 
cause for which that name was given. For example, Sunday is 
the name given to the first day of the week, in the English lan- 
guage, and it is the same in the Latin, that is, it has the same 
meaning, (Dies solis,) and also in the German, and in several other 
languages. Why then was this name given to that day? Because it 
was the day dedicated by the ancient world to the luminary, which 
in English we call the Sun, and, therefore, the day Sun-day; or the 
day of the Sun ; as in the like manner we call the second day 
Monday, the day dedicated to the Moon. 

Here the name Sunday, leads to the cause of its being called 
so, and we have visible evidence of the fact, because we behold 
the Sun from whence the name comes ; but this is not the case when 
we distinguish one part of history from another by the name of 
Sacred. All histories have been written by men. We have no 
evidence, nor any cause to believe, that any have been written by 
God. That part of the Bible called the Old Testament, is the 
history of the Jewish nation, from the time of Abraham, which be- 
gins in the 11th chap, of Genesis, to the downfall of that nation 
by Nebuchadnezzar, and is no more entitled to be called sacred 
than any other history. It is altogether the contrivance of priest- 
craft that has given it that name. So far from its being sacred^ 
it has not the appearance of being true in many of the things it 
relates. It must be better authority than a book, which any im- 
postor might make, as Mahomet made the Koran, to make a 
thoughtful man believe that the sun and moon stood still, or that 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES, 



Moses and Aaron turned the Nile, which is larger than the Bek* 
ware, into blood, and that the Egyptian magicians did the same 
These things have too much the appearance of romance to be be- 
lieved for fact. 

It would be of use to inquire, and ascertain the time, when that 
part of the Bible called the Old Testament first appeared. From 
all that can be collected theie was no such book till after the Jews 
returned from captivity in Babylon, and that it is the work of the 
Pharisees of the Second Temple. How they came to make the 
19th chapter of the 2d book of Kings, and the 37th of Isaiah, word 
for word alike, can only be accounted for by their having no plan 
to go by, and not knowing what they were about. The same is 
the case with respect to the last verses in the 2d book of Chro- 
nicles, and the first verses in Ezra, they also are word for word 
alike, which shows that the Bible has been put together at random. 

But besides these things there is great reason to believe we have 
been imposed upon, with respect to the antiquity of the Bible, and 
especially with respect to the books ascribed to Moses. Herodo- 
tus, who is called the father of history, and is the most ancient 
historian whose works have reached to our time, and who travelled 
into Egypt, conversed with the priests, historians, astronomers, 
and learned men of that country, for the purpose of obtaining all 
the information of it he could, and who gives an account of the 
ancient state of it, makes no mention of such a man as Moses, 
though the Bible makes him to have been the greatest hero there, 
nor of any one circumstance mentioned in the book of Exodus, 
respecting Egypt, such as turning the rivers into blood, the dust 
into lice, the death of the first born throughout all the land of 
Egypt, the passage of the Red Sea, the drowning of Pharaoh and 
all his host, things which could not have been a secret in Egypt, 
and must have been generally known, had they been facts ; and, 
therefore, as no such things were known in Egypt, nor any such 
man as Moses, at the time Herodotus was there, which is about 
two thousand two hundred years ago, it shows that the account of 
these things in the books ascribed to Moses is a made story of later 
times, that is, after # the return of the Jews from the Babylcnian 
captivity, and that Moses is not the author of the books ascribed 
to him. 

With respect to the cosmogony, or account of the creation, in 
€ie first chapter of Genesis, of the Garden of Eden in the second 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 353 

feliapter, and of what is called the fall of man in the third chapter, 
there is something concerning them we are not historically ac- 
quainted with. In none of the books of the Bible, after Genesis, 
are any of these things mentioned, or even alluded to. How is this 
to be accounted for? The obvious inference is, that either they 
were not known, or not believed to be facts* by the writers of the 
other books of the Bible, and that Moses is not the author of the 
chapter? where these accounts are given. 

The next question on the case is, now did the Jews come by 
these notions, and at what time were they written. 

To answer this question we must first consider what the state of 
the world was at the time the Jews began to be a people, for the 
Jews are but a modern race compared with the antiquity of other 
nations. At the time there were, even by their own account, but 
thirteen Jews or Israelites in the world, Jacob and his twelve sons, 
and four of these were bastards, the nations of Egypt, Chaldea, 
Persia, and India, were great and populous, abounding in learning 
and science, particularly in the knowledge of astronomy, of which 
the Jews were always ignorant. The chronological tables men- 
tion, that eclipses were observed at Babylon a!>ove two thousand 
years before the Christian era, which was before there was a single 
Jew or Israelite in the world. 

All those ancient nations had their cosmogonies, that is, their 
accounts how the creation was made, long before there was such 
people as Jews or Israelites. An account of these cosmogonies 
of India and Persia, is given by Henry Lord, Chaplain to the East 
India Company, at Surat, and published in London in 1630. The 
writer of this has seen a copy of the edition of 1630, and made ex- 
tracts from it. The work, which is now scarce, was dedicated 
by Lord to the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

"VVe know that the Jews were carried captive into Babylon, by 
Nebuchadnezzar, and remained in captivity several years, when 
they were liberated by Cyrus, king of Persia. During their cap- 
tivity they would have had an opportunity of acquiring some know- 
ledge of the cosmogony of the Persians, or at least of getting some 
ideas how to fabricate one to put at the head of their own history 
after their return from captivity. This will account for the cause, 
for some cause there must have been, that no mention, nor refer- 
ence is made to the cosmogony in Genesis in any of the books of 

45 



854 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES, 



the Bible, supposed to have been written before the captivity, e©<?' 
is the name of Adam to be found in any of those books. 

The books of Chronicles were written after the return of the 
Jews from captivity, for the third chapter of the first book gives a 
list of all the Jewish kings from David to Zedekiah, who was car- 
ried captive into Babylon, and to four generations beyond the time 
of Zedekiah. In the first verse of the first chapter of this book 
the name of Adam is. mentioned, but not in am S ook in the Bible ? 
written before that time, nor could it be, for. Adam and Eve are 
names taken from the cosmogony of the Persians. Henry Lord, 
in his book, written from Surat, and dedicated, as I have already 
said, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, says, that in the Persian 
cosmogony, the name of the first man was Jldamoh, and of the 
woman Hevah.* From hence comes the Adam and Eve of the 
book of Genesis. In the cosmogony of India, of which I shall 
speak in a future number, the name of the first man was Pourotis, 
and of the woman Parcoutee. We want a knowledge of the San- 
scrit language of India to understand the meaning of the names, 
and I mention it in this place, only to show that it is from the cos- 
mogony of Persia, rather than that of India, that the cosmogony in 
Genesis has been fabricated by the Jews, who returned from cap- 
tivity by the liberality of Cyrus, king of Persia. There is, however, 
reason to conclude, on the authority of Sir William Jones, who 
resided several years in India, that these names were very expres- 
sive in the language to which they belonged, for in speaking of 
this language, he says, (see the Asiatic researches,) 44 The Sanscrit 
language, whatever be its antiquity, is of wonderful structure ; it 
is more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and 
more exquisitely refined than either." 

These hints, which are intended to be continued, will serve to 
show that a society for inquiring into the ancient state of the world* 
and the state of ancient history, so far as history is connected with 
systems of religion ancient and modern, may become a useful and 
instructive institution. There is good reason to believe we have 
been in great error, with respect to the antiquity of the Bible, as 
well as imposed upon by its contents. Truth ought to be the ob- 
ject of every man ; for without truth there can be no real happiness 



* In an English edition of the Bible, in 1 583, the first woman is called He* 
Tah. Editor of the Prospect, 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



355 



fo a thoughtful mind, or any assurance of happiness hereafter. It 
is the duty of man to obtain all the knowledge he can, and then 
make the best use of it. T. P. 



TO MR. MOORE, OF NEW-YORK, 

COMMONLY CALLED 

BISHOP MOORE. 



\ have read in the newspapers your account of the visit you 
smade to the unfortunate General Hamilton, and of administering 
to him a ceremony of your church which you call the Holy Com' 
munion. 

I regret the fate of General Hamilton, and I so far hope with 
you that it wilFbe a warning to thoughtless man not to sport away 
the life that God has given him ; but with respect to other parts of 
your letter I think it very reprehensible, and betra) rreat ignorance 
of what true religion is. But you are a priest, you get your living 
by it, and it is not your worldly interest to undeceive yourself. 

After giving an account of your administering to the deceased 
what you call ' he Holy Communion, you add, 44 By reflecting on 
this melancholy event let the humble believer be encouraged ever 
to hold fast that precious faith which is the only source true con- 
solation in the last extremity of nature. Let the infidel be per- 
suaded to abandon his opposition to the Gospel." 

To show you, sir, that your promise of consolation from scrip- 
ture has no foundation to stand upon, I will cite to you one of the 
greatest falsehoods upon record, and which was given, as the re- 
cord says, for the purpose, and as a promise, of cons«-lation. 

In the epistle called 44 the First Epistle of Paul to the Thessalo- 
nians," (chap. 4,) the writer consoles the Thessalonians as to the 
case of their friends who were already dead. He does this by in- 
forming them, and he does it he says, by the word of the Lord, (a 



356 



Miscellaneous pieces. 



most notorious Falsehood,) that the general resurrection of the dead, 
and the ascension of the living, will be in his and their days ; that 
their friends will then come to life again ; that the dead in Christ 
will rise first. — " Then we (says he, v. 17) which are alive and 
remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet 
the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord — where- 
fore comfort one another with these words." 

Delusion and falsehood cannot be carried higher than they are 
in this passage. You, sir, are but a novice in the art. The words 
admit of no equivocation. The whole passage is in the first per- 
son and the present tense, " We which are alive." Had the wri- 
ter meant a future time, and a distant generation, it must have 
been in the third person and the future tense, " They who shall 
then be alive." I am thus particular for the purpose of nailing 
you down to the text, that you may not ramble from it, nor put 
other constructions upon the words than they will bear, which 
priests are very apt to do. 

Now, sir, it is impossible for serious man, to whom God has 
given the divine gift of reason, and who employs that reason to 
reverence and adore the God that gave it, it is, I say, impossible 
for such a man to put confidence in a book that abounds with fable 
and falsehood as the New Testament does. This passage is but 
a sample of what I could give you. 

You call on those whom you style " infidels," (and they in re- 
turn might call you an idolater, a worshipper of false gods, a 
preacher of false doctrine,) " to abandon their opposition to the 
Gospel." Prove, sir, the Gospel to be true, and the opposition 
will cease of itself ; but until you do this (which we know you can- 
not do) you have no right to expect they will notice your call. If 
by infidels you mean Deists, (and you must be exceedingly ignor- 
ant of the origin of the word Deist, and know but little of Deus, to 
put that construction upon it,) you will find yourself over-matched 
if you begin to engage in a controversy with them. Priests may 
dispute with priests, and sectaries with sectaries, about the mean- 
ing of what they agree to call scripture, and end as they began ; 
but when you engage with a Deist you must keep to fact. Now, 
sir, you cannot prove a single article of your religion to be true, 
and we tell you so publicly. Do it, if you can. The Deistical 
article, the belief of a God, with which your creed begins, has been 
borrowed by your church from the ancient Deists, and even this 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



357 



article you dishonour by putting a dream-begotten phantom* which 
you call his son, over his head, and treating God as if he was super- 
anuated. Deism is the only profession of religion that admits of 
worshipping and reverencing God in purity, and the only one on 
which the thoughtful mind can repose with undisturbed tranquillity. 
God is almost forgotten in the Christian religion. Every thing, 
even the creation, is ascribed to the son of Mary. 

In religion, as in every thing else, perfection consists in simpli- 
city. The Christian religion of Gods within Gods, like wheels 
within wheels, is like a complicated machine that never goes right, 
and every projector in the art of Christianity is trying to mend it. 
It is its defects that have caused such a number and variety of 
tinkers to be hammering at it, and still it goes wrong. In the vi- 
sible world no time-keeper can go equally true with the sun ; and 
in like manner, no complicated religion can be equally true with 
the pure and unmixed religion of Deism. 

Had you not offensively glanced at a description of men whom 
you call by a false name, you would not have been troubled nor 
honored with this address ; neither has the writer of it any desire 
or intention to enter into controversy with you. He thinks the 
temporal establishment of your church politic ally unjust and offen- 
sively unfair ; but with respect to religion itself, distinct from 
temporal establishments, he is happy in the enjoyment of his own, 
and he leaves you to make the best you can of yours. 

A MEMBER OF THE DEISTICAL CHURCH, 

* The first chapter of Matthew, relates that Joseph, the betrothed husband 
of Mary, dreamed that the an^el told him that his intended bride was with 
child by the Holy Ghost. It is not every husband, whether carpenter or 
priest, that can be so easily satisfied, for lo ! it was a dream. Whether Mary 
was in a dream when this was done we are not told. It is, however, a comical 
story. There is no woman living can understand it. . 



358 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



TO JOHN MASON, 

One of the Ministers of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, of New- 
York, with remarks on his account of the visit he made to the 
late General Hamilton. 

" Come now, let us reason together saith the Lord." This is 
one. of the passages you quoted from your Bible, in your conver- 
sation with General Hamilton, as given in your letter, signed with 
your name, and published in the Commercial Advertiser, and 
other New-York papers, and I re-quote the passage to show that 
your text and your Religion contradict each other. 

It is impossible to reason upon things not comprehensible by 
reason ; and, therefore, if you keep to your text, which priests 
seldom do, (for they are generally either above it, or below it, or 
forget it,) you must admit a religion to which reason can apply, 
and this certainly is not the Christian religion. 

There is not an article in the Christian religion that is cog- 
nizable by reason. The Deistical article of your religion, the 
belief of a God, is no more a Christian article, than it is a Maho- 
metan article. It is an universal article, common to all religions,- 
and which is held in greater purity by Turks than by Christians ; 
but the Deistical church is the only one which holds it in real 
purity ; because that church acknowledges no co-partnership with 
God. It believes in him solely ; and knows nothing of Sons, 
married Virgins, nor Ghosts. It holds all these things to be the 
fables of priest-craft. 

Why then do you talk of reason, or refer to it, since your reli- 
gion has nothing to do with reason, nor reason with that. You 
tell people as you told Hamilton, that they must have faith ! 
Faith in what ? You ought to know that before the mind can 
have faith in any thing, it must either know it as a fact, or see 
cause to believe it on the probability of that kind of evidence that 
is cognizable by reason ; but your religion is not within either 
of these cases ; for, in the first place, you cannot prove it be 
fact ; and in the second place, you cannot support it by reason, 
not only because it is not cognizable by reason, but because 
it is contrary to reason. What reason can there be in sup- 
posing, or believing, that God put himself to death, to satisfy 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 35§ 

himself, and be revenged on the Devil on account of Adam; for 
tell the story which way you will it conies to this at last. 

As you can make no appeal to reason in support of an unrea- 
sonable religion, you then (and others of your profession) bring 
yourselves off by telling people, they must not believe in reason 
but in revelation. This is the artifice of habit without reflection. 
It is putting words in the place of 'kings ; for do you not see that 
when you tell people to believe in revelation, you must first prove 
that what you call revelation, is revelation ; and as you cannot. do 
this, you put the word which is easily spoken, in the place of the 
thing you cannot prove. You have no more evidence that your 
Gospel is revelation, than the Turks have that their Koran is reve- 
lation, and the only difference between them and you is, that they 
preach their delusion and you preach yours. 

In your conversation with General Hamilton, you say to him, 
* { The simple truths of the Gospel which require no abstruse in- 
vestigation, but faith in the veracity of God, ivho cannot lie, are 
best suited to your present condition." 

If those matters you < all " simple truths," are what you call 
them, and require no abstruse investigation, they would be so ob- 
vious that reason would easily comprehend them ; yet the doc- 
trine you preach at other times is, that the mysteries of the Gospel 
are beyond the reach of reason. If your first position be true, that 
they are simple truths, priests are unnecessary, for we do not 
want preachers to tell us the sun shines ; and if your second be 
true, the case, as to effect, is the same, for it is waste of money to 
pay a man to explain unexplainable things, and loss of time to 
listen to him. That God cannot He, is no advantage to your 
argument, because it is no proof that priests cannot, or that the 
Bible does not. Did not Paul lie when he -told the Thessaloni ms 
that the general resurrection of the dead would be in his life-time, 
and that he should go up alive along with them into the clouds to 
meet the Lord in the air. . 1 Thes. chap. 4. v. 27. 

You spoke of what you call, " the precious blood of Christ. ir 
This savage style of language belongs to the priests of the Chris- 
tian religion. The professors of this religion say they are shock- 
ed at the accounts of human sacrifices of which they read in the 
histories of some countries. Do they not see that their own 
religion is founded on a human sacrifice, the blood of man, of 
which their priests talk like so many butchers. It is no wonder 



S60 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES- 

the Christian religion has been so bloody in its effects, for it begaij 
in blood, and many thousands of human sacrifices have since been 
offered on the altar of the Christian religion. 

It is necessary to the character of a religion, as being true, and 
immutable as God himself is, that the evidence of it be equally 
the same through all periods of time and circumstance. This is 
not the case with the Christian religion, nor with that of the Jews 
that preceded it, (for there was a time and that within the know- 
ledge of history, when these religions did not exist,) nor is it the 
case with any religion we know of but the religion of Deism. In 
this the evidences are eternal and universal. — " The heavens de- 
clare the glory of God, and the firmament sheiveth his handy work, 
— Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth 
knowledge."* But all other religions are made to arise from 
some local circumstance, and are introduced by some temporary 
trifle which its partizans call a miracle, but of which there is no 
proof but the story of it. 

The Jewish religion, according to the history of it, began in a 
toilderness, and the Christian religion in a stable. The Jewish 
books tell us of wonders exhibited upon mount Sinai. It happen- 
ed that nobody lived there to contradict the account. The Chris- 
tian books tell us of a star that hung over the stable at the birth of 
Jesus. There is no star there now, nor any person living that 
saw it. But all the stars in the heavens bear eternal evidence to 
the truth of Deism. It did not begin in a stable, nor in a wilder- 
ness. It began every where, The theatre of the universe is the 
place of its birth. 

As adoration paid to any being but GOD himself is idolatary, 
the Christian religion by paying adoration to a man, born of a 
woman, called Mary, belongs to the idolatrous class of religions, 
consequently the consolation drawn from it is delusion. Between 
you and your rival in communion ceremonies, Dr. Moore of the 

* This Psalm (19) which is a Deistical Psalm, is so much in the manner of 
some parts of the book of Job, (which is not a book of the Jews, and does not 
belong to the bible,) that it has the appearance of having been translated into 
Hebrew from the same language in which the book of Job was originally writ- 
ten, and brought by the Jews from- Chaldea or Persia, when they returned 
from captivity. The contemplation of the heavens made a great part of the 
religious devotion of the Chaldeans and Persians, and their religious festivals 
were regulated by the progress of the sun through the twelve signs of the Zo- 
diac. But the Jews knew nothing about the Heavens, or they would not 
have told the foolish story of the sun's standing still upon a hill, and the moon, 
in a valley. What could they want the moon for in the day time. 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECE?. 36 1 

Episcopal church, you have, in order to make yourselves appear 
of some importance, reduced General Hamilton's character to 
that of a feeble minded man, who in going out of the world want- 
ed a passport from a priest. Which of you was first or last ap- 
plied to for this purpose is a matter of no consequence. * 

The man, sir, who puts his trust and confidence in God, that 
leads a just and moral life, and endeavours to do good, does not 
trouble himself about priests when his hour of departure comes, 
nor permit priests to trouble themselves about him. They are in 
general mischievous beings where character is concerned ; a con- 
sultation of priests is worse than a consultation of physicians. 

A MEMBER OF THE DEISTICAL CONGREGATION. 



ON DEISM, AND THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS 
PAINE. 



The following reflections, written last winter, were occasioned 
by certain expressions in some of the public papers against Deism 
and the writings of Thomas Paine on that subject. 

" Great is Diana of the Ephesians," was the cry of the people 
of Ephesus ;* and the cry of " our holy religion," has been the 
cry of superstition in some instances, and of hypocrisy in others, 
from that day to this. 

The Brahmin, the follower of Zoroaster, the Jew, the Maho- 
metan, the church of Rome, the Greek church, the protestant 
church, split into several hundred contradictory sectaries, preach- 
ing, in some instances, damnation against each other, all cry out, 
" our. holy religion." The Calvinist, who damns children of a 
span long to hell to burn for ever for the glory of God, (and this 
is called Christianity,) and the Universalist, who preaches that all 
shall be saved and none shall be damned, (and this also is called 
Christianity,) boasts alike of their holy religion and their Christian 
faith. Something more, therefore, is necessary than mere cry 
and wholesale assertion, and that something is TRUTH ; and as 

* Acts, chap. xix. ver. 28, 
46 



362 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



inquiry is the road to truth, he that is opposed to inquiry is not a 
friend to truth. 

The God of Truth is not the God of fable ; when, therefore, 
any book is introduced into the world as the word of God, and 
made a ground- work for religion, it ought to be scrutinized more 
than other books to see if it bear evidence of being what it is cal- 
led. Our reverence to God demands that we do this, lest we as- 
cribe to God what is not his, and our duty to ourselves demand it 
lest we take fable for fact, and rest our hope of salvation on a false 
foundation. It is not our calling a book holy that makes it sO, any 
more than our calling a religion holy that entitles it to the name. 
Inquiry, therefore, is necessary in order to arrive at truth. But 
inquiry must have some principle to proceed on, some standard to 
judge by, superior to human authority. 

When we survey the works of creation, the revolutions of the 
planetary system, and the whole economy of what is called nature, 
which is no other than the laws the Creator has prescribed to mat- 
ter, we see unerring order and universal harmony reigning through- 
out the whole. No one part contradicts another. The sun does 
not run against the moon, nor the moon against the sun, nor the 
planets against each other. Every thing keeps its appointed time 
and place. This harmony in the works of God is so obvious, that 
the farmer of the field, though he cannot calculate eclipses, is as 
sensible of it as the philosophical astronomer. He sees the God 
of order in every part of the visible universe. 

Here, then, is the standard to which every thing must be brought 
that pretends to be the work or word of God, and by this standard 
it must be judged, independently of any thing and every thing that 
man can say or do. His opinion is like a feather in the scale com- 
pared with the standard that God himself has set up. 

It is, therefore, by this standard, that the Bible, and all other 
books pretending to be the word of God, (and there are many of 
them in the world,) must be judged, and not by the opinions of men 
or the decrees of ecclesiastical councils. These have been so 
contradictory, that they have often rejected in one council what 
they had voted to be the word of God in another ; and admitted 
what had been before rejected. In this state of uncertainty in ' 
which we are, and which is rendered still more uncertain by the 
numerous contradictory sectaries that have sprung up since the 
time of Luther and Calvin, what is man to do % The answer is 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



363 



easy. Begin at the root — begin with the Bible itself. Examine it 
with the utmost strictness, It is our duty so to do. Compare the 
parts with each other, and the whole with the harmonious, magni- 
ficent order that reigns throughout the visible universe, and the 
result will be, that if the same almighty wisdom that created the 
universe, dictated also the Bible, the Bible will be as harmonious 
and as magnificent in all its parts, and in the whole, as the uni- 
verse is. But if, instead of this, the parts are found to be discor- 
dant, contradicting in one place what is said in another, (as in 2 
Sam. chap. xxiv. v. 1, and 1 Chron. chap. xxi. ver. 1, where the 
same action is ascribed to God in one book and to Satan in the 
other,) abounding also in idle and obscene stories, and represent- 
ing the Almighty as a passionate, whimsical Being, continually 
changing his mind, making and unmaking his own works as if he 
did not know what he was about, we may take it for certainty that 
the Creator of the universe is not the author of such a book, that 
it is not the word of God, and that to call it so is to dishonour his 
name. The Quakers, who are a people more moral and regular in 
their conduct than the people of other sectaries, and generally al- 
lowed so to be, do not hold the Bible to be the word of God. They 
call it a history of the times, and a bad history it is, and also a history 
of bad men and of bad actions, and abounding with bad examples. 

For several centuries past the dispute has been about doctrines* 
It is now about fact. Is the Bible the word of God, or is it not ? 
for until this point is established, no doctrine drawn from the Bible 
can afford real consolation to man, and he ought to be careful he 
does not mistake delusion for truth. This is a case that con- 
cerns all men alike. 

There has always existed in Europe, and also in America, since 
its establishments, a numerous description of men, (I do not here 
mean the Quakers,) who did not, and do not believe the Bible to 
be the word of God. These men never formed themselves into 
an established society, but are to be found in all the sectaries that 
exist, and are more numerous than any, perhaps equal to all, and 
are daily increasing. From Dens, the latin word for God, they 
have been denominated Deists,, that is, believers in God. It is the 
most honourable appellation that can be given to man, because it 
is derived immediately from the Deity. It is not an artificial name 
like episcopalian, presbyterian, &c. but is a name of sacred signk 
fication, and to revile it is to revile the name of God, 



364 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



Since then there is so much doubt and uncertainty about the 
Bible, some asserting, and others denying it to be the word of God, 
it is best that the whole matter come out. It is necessary, for the 
information of the world, that it should. A better time cannot of- 
fer than whilst the government, patronizing no one sect or opinion 
in preference to another, protects equally the rights of all ; and 
certainly every man must spurn the idea of an ecclesiastical 
tyranny, engrossing the rights of the press, and holding it free only 
for itself. 

Whilst the terrors of the church, and the tyranny of the state, 
hung like a pointed sword over Europe, men were commanded to 
believe what the church told them, or go t6 the stake. All in- 
quiries into the authenticity of the Bible were shut out by the in- 
quisition. We ought, therefore, to suspect, that a great mass of 
information respecting the Bible, and the introduction of it into the 
world, has been suppressed by the united tyranny of church and 
state, for the purpose of keeping people in ignorance, and which 
ought to be known. 

The Bible has been received by the protestants on the authority 
of the church of Rome, and on no other authority. It is she that 
has said it is the word of God. We do not admit the authority of 
that church with respect to its pretended infallibility, its manufac- 
tured miracles, its setting itself up to forgive sins, its amphibious 
doctrine of transubstantiation, &c. ; and we ought to be watchful 
with respect to any book introduced by her, or her ecclesiastical 
councils, and called by her the word of God : and the more so, 
because it was by propagating that belief and supporting it by fire 
and faggot, that she kept up her temporal power. That the belief 
of the Bible does no good in the world, may be seen by the irregu- 
lar lives of those, as well priests as laymen, who profess to believe 
it to be the word of God, and the moral lives of the Quakers who 
do not. It abounds with too many ill examples to be made a rule 
for moral life, and were a man to copy after the lives of some of 
its most celebrated characters, he would come to the gallows.. 

Thomas Paine has written to show that the Bible is not the 
word of God, that the books it contains were not written by the 
persons to whom they are ascribed, that it is an anonymous book, 
and that we have no authority for calling it the word of God, or for 
saying it was written by inspired penmen, since we do not know 
who the writers were. This is the opinion not only of Thomas 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES, 365 

Paine, but of thousands and tens of thousands of the most respect- 
able characters in the United States and in Europe. These men 
have the same right to their opinions as others have to contrary 
opinions, and the same right to publish them. Ecclesiastical 
tyranny is not admissible in the United States. 

With respect to morality, the writings of Thomas Paine are re- 
markable for purity and benevolence ; and though he often enli- 
vens them with touches of wit and humour, he never loses sight of 
the real solemnity of his subject. No man's morals, either with 
respect to his Maker, himself, or his neighbour, can suffer by the 
writings of Thomas Paine. 

It is now too late to abuse Deism, especially in a country where 
the press is free, or where free presses can be established. It is a 
religion that has God for its patron and derives its name from him. 
The thoughtful mind of man, wearied with the endless contentions 
of sectaries against sectaries, doctrines against doctrines, and 
priests against priests, finds its repose at last in the contemplative 
belief and worship of one God and the practice of morality, for as 
Pope wisely says, 

" He can't be wrong, whose life is in the right." 



OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

Address to the believers in the book called the Scriptures. 



The New Testament contains twenty-seven books, of which 
four are called Gospels ; one called the Acts of the Apostles ; 
fourteen called Epistles of Paul ; one of James ; two of Peter ; 
three of John ; one of Jude ; and one called the Revelation. 

None of those books have the appearance of being written by 
the persons whose names they bear, neither do we know who the 
authors were. They come to us on no other authority than the 
church of Rome, which the Protestant Priests, especially those of 
New England, call the Whore of Babylon. This church appoint- 
ed sundry councils to be held, to compose creeds for the people, 
and to regulate church affairs. Two of the principal of these 
councils were that of Nice, and of Laodocia, (names of the places 
where the councils were held,) about three hundred and fifty years 



366 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



after the time that Jesus is said to have lived. Before this time 
there was no such book as the New Testament. But the church 
could not well go on without having something to show, as the 
Persians showed the Zendavista, revealed, they say, by God to 
Zoroaster ; the Bramins of India, the Shaster, revealed, they say, 
by God to Bruma, and given to him out of a dusky cloud ; the 
Jews, the books they call the Law of Moses, given they say also 
out of a cloud on Mount Sinai ; the church set about forming a 
code for itself out of such materials as it could find or pick up. 
But where they got those materials, in what language they were 
written, or whose hand writing they were, or whether they were 
originals or copies, or on what authority they stood we know noth- 
ing of, nor does the New Testament tell us. The church was 
resolved to have a New Testament, and as after the lapse of more 
than three hundred years, no hand-writing could be proved or dis- 
proved, the church, who like former impostors, had then gotten 
possession of the state, had every thing its own way. It invented 
creeds, such as that called the Apostle's Creed, the Nicean Creed, 
the Athanasian Creed, and out of the loads of rubbish that were 
presented, it voted four to be Gospels, and others to be Epistles, 
as we now find them arranged. 

Of those called Gospels, above forty were presented, each pre- 
tending to be genuine. Four only were voted in, and entitled, 
the Gospel according to St. Matthew — the Gospel according to 
St. Mark — the Gospel according to St. Luke— the Gospel ac- 
cording to St. John, 

This word according, shows that those books have not been 
written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but according to some 
accounts or traditions, picked up concerning them. The word 
according means agreeing with, and necessarily includes the idea 
of two things, or two persons. We cannot say, The Gospel writ? 
ten by Matthew according to Matthew ; but we might say, the 
the Gospel of some other person according to what was reported 
to have been the opinion of Matthew. Now we do not know 
who those other persons were, nor whether what they wrote ac- 
corded with any thing that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John might 
have said. There is too little evidence, and too much contrivance, 
about those books to merit credit. 

The next book after those called Gospels, is that called the Acts 
of the Apostles. This book is anonymous ; neither do the conn- 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 367 

cils that compiled or contrived the New Testament tell us how 
they came by it. The church, to supply this defect, say it was 
written by Luke, which shows that the church and its priests have 
not compared that called the Gospel according to St. Luke, and 
the Acts together, for the two contradict each other. The book 
of Luke, cjiap. 24, makes Jesus ascend into heaven the very same 
day that it makes him rise from the grave. The book of Acts, 
chap. i. v. 3, says, that he remained on the earth forty days after 
his crucifixion. There is no believing what either of them says. 

The next to the book of Acts is that entitled. " The Epistle of 
Paul the Apostle* to the Romans." This is not an Epistle, or let- 
ter written by Paul or signed by him. It is an Epistle, or letter, 
written by a person who signs himself Tertius, and sent, as it is 
said at the end, by a servant woman called Phebe. The last chap- 
ter, v. 22, says. " I Tertius, who wrote this Epistle, salute you." 
Who Tertius or Phebe were, we know nothing of. The Epistle 
is not dated. The whole of it is written in the first person, and 
that person is Tertius, not Paul. But it suited the church to 
ascribe it to Paul. There is nothing in it that is interesting ex- 
cept it be to contending and wrangling sectaries. The stupid 
metaphor of the potter and the clay is in the 9th chap. 

The next book is entittled " The first Epistle of Paul the Apos- 
tle, to the Corinthians." This, like the former, is not an Epistle 
written by Paul, nor signed by him. The conclusion of the Epis- 
tle says, " The first epistle to the Corinthians was written from 
Philippi, by Stephenas and Fortunatus, and Achaicus and Timo- 
theus." The second epistle entitled, *' The second epistle of 
Paul the Apostle, to the Corinthians," is in the same case with the 
first. The conclusion of if says, " It was written from Philippi, 
a city of Macedonia, by Titus and Lucas. 

A question may arise upon these cases, which is, are these per- 
sons the writers of the epistles originally, or are they the writers 
and attestors of copies sent to the councils who compiled the code 
or canon of the New Testament 1 If the epistles had been dated 
this question could be decided ; but in either of the cases the 
evidences of Paul's hand writing and of their being written by him 

* According to the criterion of the churchj Paul was not an apostle ; that 
appellation being given only to those called the twelve. Two sailors belong- 
ing to a man of war, got into a dispute upon this point, whether Paul was an 
apostle or not, and they agreed to refer it to the boatswain, who decided very 
eanonically that Paul was an acting apostle but not rated, 



368 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECE?. 



is wanting, and, therefore, there is no authority for calling them 
Epistles of Paul. We know not whose Episles they were, nor 
whether they are genuine or forged. 

The next is entitled, " The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the 
Galatians." It contains six short chapters. But short as the epis- 
tle is, it does not carry the appearance of being the work or com- 
position of one person. The fifth chapter, ver. 2, says, " If ye 
be circumcised Christ shall avail you nothing." It does not say 
circumcision shall profit you nothing, but Christ shall profit you 
nothing. Yet in the sixth chap. v. 15, it says, " For in Christ 
Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision, 
but a new creature." These are not reconcileable passages, nor 
can contrivance make them so. The conclusion of the epistle 
says, it was written from Rome, but it is not dated, nor is there any 
signature to it, neither do the compilers of the New Testament 
say how they came by it. We are in the dark upon all these 
matters. 

The next is entitled, " the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the 
Ephesians." Paul is not the writer. The conclusion of it says, 
" Written from Rome unto the Ephesians by Tychicus." 

The next is entitled, " the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the 
Philippians." Paul is not the writer. The conclusion of it says, 
" It was written to the Philippians from Rome by Epaphroditus." 
It is not dated. Query, were those men who wrote and signed 
those Epistles journeymen Apostles, who undertook to write in 
Paul's name, as Paul is said to have preached in Christ's name ! 

The next is entitled, " the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the 
Colossians." Paul is not the writer. Doctor Luke is spoken of 
in this Epistle as sending his compliments. " Luke, the beloved 
physician and Demas greet you." Chap. iv. v. 14. It does not 
say a word about his writing any Gospel. The conclusion of the 
Epistle says, " Written from Rome to the Collossians, by Tychi- 
cus and Onesimus." 

The next is entitled, " The first and the second Epistles of Paul 
the Apostle, to the Thessalonians." Either the writer of these 
Epistles was a visionary enthusiast, or a direct impostor, for he 
tells the Thessalonians, and, he says, he tells them by the word of 
the Lord, that the world will be at an end in his and their time ; 
and after telling them that those who are already dead shall rise, 
he adds, chapter 4, verse 17, « Then we which are alive and 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



369 



remain shall be caught up with them into the clouds to meet the Lord 
in the air, and so shall we be ever with the Lord." Such detected 
lies as these, ought to fill priests with confusion, when they preach 
such books to be the word of God. These two Epistles are said 
in the conclusion of them, to be written from Athens. They are 
without date or signatures. 

The next four Epistles are private letters. Two of them are to 
Timothy, one to Titus, and one to Philemon. Who they were, 
nobody knows. 

The first to Timothy, is said to be written from Laodicea. It is 
without date or signature. The second to Timothy, is said to be 
written from Rome, and is without date or signature. The Epistle 
to Titus is said to be written from Nicopolis in Macedonia. It is 
without date or signature. The Epistle to Philemon is said to be 
written from Rome by Onesimus. It is without date. 

The last Epistle ascribed to Paul is entitled, ** The Epistle of 
Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews," and is said in the conclusion 
to be written from Italy, by Timothy. This Timothy (according 
to the conclusion of the Epistle called the second Epistle of Paul 
to Timothy) was bishop of the church of the Ephesians, and con- 
sequently this is not an Epistle of Paul. 

On what slender cob-web evidence, do the priests and profes- 
sors of the Christian religion hang their faith ! The same degree 
of hearsay evidence, and that at third and fourth hand, would not, 
in a court of justice, give a man title to a cottage, and yet the 
priests of this profession presumptuously promise their deluded 
followers the kingdom of Heaven. A little reflection would teach 
men that those books are not to be trusted to ; that so far from 
there being any proof they are the word of God, it is unknown who 
the writers of them were, or at what time they were written, within 
three hundred years after the reputed authors are said to have lived. 
It is not the interest of priests, who get their living by them, 
to examine into the insufficiency of the evidence upon which those 
books were received by the popish councils who compiled the New 
Testament. 

The cry of the priests that the church is in danger, is the cry of 
men who do not understand the interest of their own craft, for 
instead of exciting alarms and apprehensions for its safety, as they 
expect, it excites suspicion that the foundation is not sound, and 
that it is necessary to take down and build it on a surer founda* 

47 



370 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 

tion. Nobody fears for the safety of a mountain, but a hillock of 
sand may be washed away ! Blow then, ye priests, " the Trum- 
pet in Zion 3 " for the Hillock is in danger. 

DETECTOR — P. 



COMMUNICATION. 

The church tells us that the books of the Old and New Testa- 
ment are divine revelation, and without this revelation we could 
not have true ideas of God. 

The Deist, on the contrary, say, that those books are not divine 
revelation, and that were it not for the light of reason, and the reli^ 
gion of Deism, those books, instead of teaching us true ideas of God* 
would teach us not only false but blasphemous ideas of him. 

Deism teaches us that God is a God of truth and justice. 
Does the Bible teach the same doctrine ? It does not. 

The Bible says, (Jeremiah, chap. 20, verses 5, 7,) that God is a 
deceiver. " O Lord (says Jeremiah) thou hast deceived me, and 
I was deceived. Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed." 

Jeremiah not only upbraids God with deceiving him, but in 
chap. 4, verse 9, he upbraids God with deceiving the people of 
Jerusalem. " Ah ! Lord God, (says he,) surely thou hast greatly 
deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ye shall have peace* 
whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul." 

In chap. 15, verse 8, the Bible becomes more impudent, and 
calls God in plain language, a liar. " Wilt thou, (says Jeremiah) 
to God,) be altogether unto me as a liar and as waters that fail." 

Ezekiel chap. 14, verse 9, makes God to say — " If the prophet 
be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord hath deceived 
that prophet." All this is downright blasphemy. 

The prophet Micaiah, as he is called, 2 Chron. chap. 18, verse 
18, tells another blasphemous story of God. — " I saw, says he, the 
Lord sitting on his throne, and all the hosts of heaven standing on 
his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, who shall en- 
tice Ahab, king of Israel, to go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead 1 And 
one spoke after this manner, and another after that manner. Then 
there came out a spirit (Micaiah does not tell us where he came 
from) and stood before the Lord, (what an impudent fellow this 



MISCELLANEOUS "PIECES. 371 

spirit was,) and said, I will entice him. And the Lord said unto 
him, wherewith 1 and he said, I will go out and be a lying spirit 
in the mouth, of all his prophets. And the Lord said thou shalt 
entice him, and thou shalt also prevail ; go out and do even so. 

We often hear of a gang of thieves plotting to rob and murder a 
man, and laying a plan to entice him out that they may execute 
their design, and we always feel shocked at the wickedness of such 
wretches ; but what must we think of a book that describes the 
Almighty acting in the same manner, and laying plans in heaven 
to entrap and ruin mankind. Our ideas of his justice and good- 
ness forbid us to believe such stories, and, therefore, we say that a 
lying spirit has been in the mouth of the writers of the books of the 
Bible. T. P. 

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PROSPECT. 

In addition to the judicious remarks in your 12th number, on 
the absurd story of Noah's flood, in the 7th chapter of Genesis, I 
send you the following : 

The 2d verse makes God to say unto Noah, " Of every clean 
beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female, 
and of every beast that are not clean, by two, the male and his 
female." 

Now, there was no such thing as beasts clean and unclean in 
the time of Noah. Neither were there any such people as Jews 
or Israelites at that time, to whom that distinction was a law. The 
law, called the law of Moses, by which a distinction is made, 
beasts clean and unclean, was not until several hundred 
years after the time that Noah is said to have lived. The stoiy, 
therefore, detects itself, because the inventor forgot himself, by 
making God make use of an expression that could not be used at 
the time. The blunder is of the same kind, as if a man in telling 
a story about America a hundred years ago, should quote an ex- 
pression from Mr. Jefferson's inaugural speech as if spoken by 
him at that time. 

My opinion of this story is the same as what a man once said 
to another, who asked him in a drawling tone of voice, Do you 
believe the account about No-ah?" The other replied in the same 
tone of voice, ah-no. T. P» 



372 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.- 



RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE * 



The following publication, which has appeared in several news-- 
papers in different parts of the United States, shows in the most 
striking manner the character and effects of religious fana- 
ticism, and to what extravagant lengths it will carry its unruly 
and destructive operations. We give it a place in the Prospect, 
because we think the perusal of it will be gratifying to our sub- 
scribers ; and, because, by exposing the true character of such 
frantic zeal, we hope to produce some influence upon the rea- 
son of man, and induce him to rise superior to such dreadful 
illusions. The judicious remarks at the end of this account 
were communicated to us by a very intelligent and faithful friend 
to the cause of Deism. 

Mxtract from a Letter of the Rev. George Scott, of Mill Creek, Washington 
County, Pennsylvania, to Col. William M l Farran, of Mount Bethel, North- . 
amptGn County, P. dated November 3, 1802. 

My Dear Friend, 

We have wonderful times here. God has been pleased to visit 
this barren corner with abundance of his grace. The work began 
in a neighbouring congregation, at a sacramental occasion, about 
the last of September. It did not make its appearance in my con- 
gregation till the first Tuesday of October. After society in the 
night, there appeared an evident stir among the young people, but 
nothing of the appearance of what appeared afterwards. On Sa- 
turday evening following we had society, but it was dull throughout. 
On Sabbath-day one cried out, but nothing else extraordinary ap- 
peared. — That evening I went part of the way to the Raccoon 
congregation, where the sacrament of the supper was administered ; 

* It becomes necessary to insert Mr. Scott's letter, for the due understanding 
of the comments made upon it, by Mr. Paine. It has also in itself much in- 
terest, as exhibiting a true picture of the awful condition in which priestcraft 
has involved human nature, by inculcating " the doctrines of our fallen state 
by nature, and the way of recovering through Christ." A more childish and 
besotted dogma, I will venture to say, was never taught in the most barbarous 
Bation that ever existed in the world.— Ed* 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



373 



feat on Monday morning a very strong impression of duty con- 
strained me to return to my congregation in the Flats, where the 
work was begun. We met in the afternoon at the meeting-house, 
where we had a warm society. In the evening we removed to a 
neighbouring house, where we continued in society till midnight ; 
numbers were falling all the time of society. — After the people 
were dismissed, a considerable number staid and sung hymns, till 
perhaps two o'clock in the morning, when the work began to the 
astonishment of all. Only five or six were left able to take care 
of the rest, to the number perhaps of near forty. — They fell in all 
directions, on benches, on beds, and on the floor. Next morning 
the people began to flock in from all quarters. One girl came 
early in the morning, but did not get within one hundred yards of 
the house before she fell powerless, and was carried in. We could 
not leave the house, and, therefore, continued society all that day 
and all that night, and on Wednesday morning I was obliged to 
leave a number of them on the spot. On Thursday evening we 
met again, when the work was amazing ; about twenty persons lay 
to all appearance dead for near two and a half hours, and a great 
number cried out with sore distress. — Friday I preached at Mill 
Creek. Here nothing appeared more than an unusual solemnity. 
That evening we had society, where great numbers were brought 
under conviction, but none fell. On sabbath-day I preached at 
Mill Creek. This day and evening was a very solemn time but 
none fell. On Monday I went to attend presbytery, but return- 
ed on Thursday evening to the Flats, where society was ap- 
pointed, when numbers were struck down. On Saturday evening 
we had society, and a very solemn time — about a dozen persons 
lay dead three and a half hours by the watch. On sabbath a num- 
ber fell, and we were obliged to continue all night in society, as we 
had done every evening we had met before. On Monday a Mr. 
Hughes preached at Mill Creek, but nothing extraordinary appear- 
ed, only a great deal of falling. We concluded to divide that even- 
ing into two societies, in order to accommodate the people. Mr. 
H. attended the one and I the other. Nothing strange appeared 
where Mr. H. attended ; but where I attended God was present 
in the most wonderful manner. I believe there was not one pre- 
sent but was more or less affected. A considerable number fell 
powerless, and two or three, after laying some time, recovered 
with joy, and spoke near half an hour. One, especially, declared 



374 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



in a surprising manner the wonderful view she had of the person 
character, and offices of Christ, with such accuracy of language, 
that I was astonished to hear it. Surely this must be the work of 
God ! On Thursday evening we had a lively society, but not much 
falling down. On Saturday we all went to the Cross Roads, and 
attended a sacrament. Here were, perhaps, about 4000 people 
collected. The weather was uncomfortable ; on the Sabbath-day 
it rained, and on Monday it snowed. We had thirteen ministers 
present. The exercises began on Saturday, and continued on 
night and day with little or no intermission. Great numbers fell ; 
to speak within bounds, there were upwards of 150 down at one 
time, and some of them continued three or four hours with but lit- 
tle appearance of life. Numbers came to, rejoicing, while others 
were deeply distressed. — The scene was wonderful ; the cries of 
the distressed, and the agonising groans, gave some faint represen- 
tation of the awful cries and the bitter screams which will no doubt 
be extorted from the damned in hell. But what is to me the most 
surprising, of those who have been subjects among my people 
with whom I have conversed, but three had any terrors of hell dur- 
ing their exercise. The principal cry is, how long have I reject- 
ed Christ ! O how often have I embrned my hands in his precious 
blood ! O how often have I waded through his precious blood by 
stifling conviction ! this dreadful hard heart ! what a dreadfu' 
monster sin is ! It was my sin that nailed Jesus to the cross, &c. 

The preaching is various ; some thunder the terrors of the law 
— others preach the mild invitation of the gospel. For my part, 
since the work began, I have confined myself chiefly to the doc- 
trines of our fallen state by nature, and the way of recovery through 
Christ ; opening the way of salvation ; showing how God can be 
just and yet be the justifier of them that believe, and also the na- 
ture of true faith and repentance ; pointing out the difference be- 
tween true and false religion, and urging the invitations of the gos- 
pel in the most engaging manner that I am master of, without any 
strokes of terror. The convictions and cries appear to be, per- 
haps, nearly equal under all these different modes of preaching, but 
it appears rather most when we preach on the fulness and freeness 
of salvation. 



Miscellaneous pieces,, 



375 



REMARKS BY MR. PAINE. 

In the fifth chapter of Mark, we read a strange story of the 
Devil getting into the swine after he had been turned out of a man, 
and as the freaks of the Devil in that story and the tumble-down 
descriptions in this are very much alike ; the two stories ought to 
go together. 

" And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the 
country of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the 
ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an un- 
clean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs ; and no man 
could bind him, no, not with chains : because that he had been 
often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been 
plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces ; neither 
could any man tame him. And always night and day, he was in 
the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with 
stones. But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped 
him, and cried with a loud voice, and said, what have I to do with 
thee, Jesus, thou son of the most high God 1 I adjure thee by God, 
that thou torment me not. (For he said unto him, come out of the 
man, thou unclean spirit.) And he asked him, what is thy name? 
and he answered, saying, my name is Legion : for we are many. 
And he besought him much that he would not send them away out 
of the country. Now there was there, nigh unto the mountains, a 
great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought him, 
saying, send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And 
forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went 
out, and entered into the swine ; and the herd ran down a vio- 
lently steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand,) 
and were choaked in the sea." 

The force of the imagination is capable of producing strange ef- 
fects. — When animal magnetism began in France, which was while 
Doctor Franklin was minister to that country, the wonderful ac- 
counts given of the wonderful effects it produced on the persons 
who were under the operation, exceeded any thing related in the 
foregoing letter from Washington County. They tumbled down, 
fell into trances, roared and rolled about like persons supposed to 
be bewitched. The government, in order to ascertain the fact, or 
detect the imposition, appointed a committee of physicians to in- 



376 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



quire into the case, and Doctor Franklin was requested to accom- 
pany them, which he did. 

The committee went to the operator's house, and the persons 
on whom an operation was to be performed were assembled. 
They were placed in the position in which they had been when 
under former operations, and blind-folded. In a little time they 
began to show signs of agitation, and in the space of about two 
hours they went through all the frantic airs they had shown before ; 
but the case was, that no operation was performing upon them, 
neither was the operator in the room, for he had been ordered out 
of it by the physicians ; but as the persons did not know this, they 
supposed him present and operating upon them. It was the effect 
of imagination only. Doctor Franklin, in relating this account to 
the writer of this article, said, that he thought the government might 
as well have let it gone on, for that as imagination sometimes pro- 
duced disorders it might also cure some. It is fortunate, however, 
that this falling down and crying out scene did not happen in New 
England a century ago, for if it had the preachers would have been 
hung for witchcraft, and in more ancient times the poor falling 
down folks would have been supposed to be possessed of a devilj 
like the man in Mark, among the tombs. The progress that rea- 
son and Deism make in the world, lessen the force of superstition, 
and abate the spirit of persecution. 



PROFESSION OF FAITH 

OP 

A SAVOYARD VICAR: 

EXTRACTED FROM EMILIUS ; OR, A TREATISE OF EDUCATION, 
Br. J. J. ROUSSEAU. 



The author introduces the principles and opinions of the Savo- 
yard Vicar with the following preliminary remarks : 

I foresee how much my readers will be surprised to find I 
have attended my pupil throughout the whole first age of life, 
without once speaking to him of religion. He hardly knows at 
fifteen years of age whether or not he has a soul, and perhaps it 
will not be time to inform him of it when he is eighteen ; for, if he 
learns it too soon, he runs a risk of never knowing it at all. 

If I w r ere to design a picture of the most deplorable stupidity, 
I would draw a pedant teaching children their catechism : and 
were I resolved to crack the brain of a child, I would oblige him 
to explain what he said when he repeated his catechism. It may 
be objected, that the greater part of the dogmas of Christianity 
being mysterious, to expect the human mind should be capable of 
conceiving them, is not so much to expect children should be 
men, but that man should be something more. To this I answer, 
in the first place, that there are mysteries, which it is not only im- 
possible for man to comprehend, but also to believe ; and I do not 
see what we get by teaching them to children, unless it be to learn 
them betimes to tell lies. I will say farther, that before we admit 
of mysteries, it is necessary for us to comprehend, at least, that 
they are incomprehensible, and children are not even capable 
of this. At an age when every thing is mysterious, there are 
no such things properly speaking, as mysteries. 

48 



378 PROFESSION OF FAITH OF 

Believe in God, and thou shall he saved. This dogma, rnis~ 
Understood, is the principle of sanguinary persecution, and the 
cause of all those futile instructions which have given a mortal 
blow to human reason, by accustoming it to be satisfied with 
words. 

To impose an obligation of believing, supposes the possibility 
of it. But though a child should profess the Christian religion 9 
what can he believe ? He can believe only what he conceives, 
and he conceives so little of what is said to him, that if you tell 
him directly the contrary, he adopts the latter dogma as readily as 
he did the former. The faith of children, and indeed of many 
grown persons, is merely an affair of geography. Are they to be 
rewarded in heaven, because they were born at Rome, and not at 
Mecca ? One man is told that Mahomet was a prophet sent by 
God, and he accordingly says that Mahomet was a prophet sent 
by God ; the other is told that Mahomet was an impostor, and he 
also in like manner says Mahomet was an impostor. Had 
these two persons only changed places, each would also have 
changed his tone, and affirmed what he now denies. Can we infer 
from two dispositions so much alike, that one will go to heaven, 
and the other to hell ? When a child says he believes in God* 
*t is not in God he believes, but in Peter or James, who tells him 
there is something which is called God : he believes in the man- 
ner of Euripides, when Jupiter was thus addressed in one of his 
tragedies ;* 

Jupiter ! Though nothing I know of thee but thy name, 

All the difference that I see here between me and my readers 
is, that you think children of seven years of age capacitated to be- 
lieve in God, and I do not think them capable of it even at fifteen. 
Whether I am right or wrong in this particular, it is not in itself 
an article of faith, but only a simple observation in natural history. 

Let us beware of divulging the truth to those who are incapable 
of understanding it : for this is the way to substitute error in the 
room of it. It were better to have no idea of God at all, than to 
entertain those which are mean, fantastical, injurious, and un- 
worthy a divine object ; it is a less crime to be ignorant of, than 
insult him. I had much rather says the amiable Plutarch, that 



* The tragedy of Menalippus, which at first began with this line ; but the 
clamours of the Athenians obliged Euripides afterwards to alter it. — Plutarch, 



A SAVOYARD VICAR. 



379 



people should believe there is no such person as Plutarch in 
the world, than that they should say, he is unjust, envious, jealous, 
and so tyrannical as to require of others what he has not left them 
power to perform. 

The great evil of those preposterous images of the Deity, which 
we may trace in the minds of children, is, that they remain indelible 
during their whole life ; and that when they are men, they have no 
better conceptions of God than they had when they were children. 
Custom and prejudice triumph particularly in matters of reli- 
gion. But how shall we, who on all occasions pretend to shake 
off its yoke ; we, who pay no regard to the authority of opinion ; 
who would teach our pupil nothing but what he might have learn- 
ed himself, in any country ; in what religion shall we educate 
Emilius ? To what sect shall we unite the man of nature 1 The 
answer appears to me very simple ; we shall unite him neither to 
one nor another ; but place him in a proper situation, and qualify 
him to make choice of that which the best use of his reason 
may induce him to adopt. 

Incedo per ignes 
Suppositos cineri dolose* 

No matter; my zeal and sincerity have hitherto stood me in 
the stead of prudence. I hope these, my securities, will not for 
sake me in necessity. Fear not, readers, that I shall take any 
precautions unworthy a friend to truth ; I shall never lose sight of 
my motto ; but certainly I may be permitted to distrust my own 
judgment. Instead of telling you what I think myself, I will give 
you the sentiments of a man of greater weight than I am. I an- 
swer for the veracity of the facts which are here related ; they 
really happened to the author of the paper I am going to tran- 
scribe. It is your business to see if any useful reflections may 
be drawn from it relative to the subject of which it treats. I 
neither propose the sentiments of myself or another, as a rule for 
you, but only submit them to your examination. 

About thirty years ago, a young man, who had forsaken his own 
country, and rambled into Italy, found himself reduced to circum- 
stances of great poverty and distress. He had been bred a CaU 
vinist ; but, in consequence of his misconduct, and of being un- 
happily a fugitive in a foreign country, without money or friends, 
\\e was induced to change his religion for the sake of subsistence. 

* I am treating upon fires hid under deceitful asjbes,— En, 



380 PROFESSION OF FAITH OF 

To this end he procured admittance into an house established for 
the reception of proselytes. Here, the instructions he received 
concerning some controversial points, excited doubts he had not 
before entertained, and brought him first acquainted with the evil 
of the step he had taken. He was taught strange dogmas, and 
was eye-witness to stranger manners ; and to these he saw him- 
self a destined victim. He now attempted to make his escape, 
but was prevented and more closely confined ; if he complained, 
he was punished for complaining ; and, lying at the mercy of 
his tyrannical oppressors, found himself treated as a criminal, 
because he could not without reluctance submit to be so. He 
had been doubtless entirely ruined, had it not been for the 
good offices of an honest ecclesiastic, who came to the hospital 
on some business, and with whom he found an opportunity of a 
private conference. The good priest was himself poor, and stood 
in need of every one's assistance ; the oppressed proselyte, how- 
ever, stood yet in greater need of him ; the former did not hesi- 
tate, therefore, to favour his escape, at the risk of making himself 
a powerful enemy. 

This good priest was naturally humane and compassionate, his 
own misfortunes had taught him to feel for those of others, nor 
had prosperity hardened his heart ; in a word, the maxims of true 
wisdom and conscious virtue, had confirmed the goodness of his 
natural disposition. He cordially embraced the young wanderer, 
provided him a lodging, and shared with him the slender means of 
his own subsistence. Nor was this all ; he went still farther, 
giving him both instruction and consolation, in order to teach him 
that difficult art of supporting adversity with patience. Could you 
believe, ye sons of prejudice ! that a priest, and a priest in Italy 
too, could be capable of this. 

This honest ecclesiastic was a poor Savoyard, who, having in 
his younger days incurred the displeasure of his bishop, was 
obliged to pass the mountains, in order to seek that provision 
which was denied him in his own country. He was neither defiU 
cient in literature nor understanding ; his talents, therefore, toge- 
ther with an engaging appearance, soon procured him protectors, 
who recommended him to be tutor to a young man of quality. 
He preferred poverty, however, to dependence ; and, being a 
i stranger to the manners and behaviour of the great, he remained 
but a short time in that situation. In quitting this service, never- 



A SAVOYARD VICAR, 381 

theless he did not lose the esteem of his patron ; and, as he be* 
haved with great prudence, and was universally beloved, he flat* 
tered himself he should in time regain the good opinion of his 
bishop, and obtain some little benefice in the mountains, where he 
hoped to spend the rest of his days. This was the height of his 
ambition. 

Interested, by a natural propensity, in favour of the young fugi- 
tive, he examined very carefully into his character and disposition. 
In this examination, he saw that his misfortunes had already de- 
based his heart ; that the shame and contempt to which he had 
been exposed, had depressed his courage, and that his disappoint* 
ed pride, converted into indignation, deduced from the injustice 
and cruelty of mankind, the depravity of human nature, and the 
emptiness of virtue. He had observed religion made use of as 
a mask to self-interest, and its worship as a cloak to hypocrisy. 
He had seen the terms heaven and hell prostituted in the subtility 
of vain disputes : the joys of the one and pains of the other being 
annexed to a mere repetition of words. He had observed the 
sublime and primitive idea of the divinity disfigured by the fantas* 
tical imaginations of men ; and finding that, in order to believe in 
God,* it was necessary to give up that understanding he hath be- 
stowed on us, he held in the same disdain as well the sacred object 
of our idle reveries, as those reveries themselves. Without know- 
ing any thing of natural causes, or giving himself any trouble to 
think about them, he had plunged himself into the most stupid ig* 
norance, mixed with the most profound contempt for those who 
pretended to know more than himself. 

But I will continue to speak no longer in the third person, 
which is indeed a superfluous caution ; as you are very sensible, 
my dear countrymen, that the unhappy fugitive I have been speak- 
ing of is myself. 1 conceive myself far enough removed from the 
irregularities of my youth to dare to avow them ; and think the 
hand which extricated me from them, too well deserving my gra* 
titude, for me not to do it honour, at the expence of a little shame. 

The most striking circumstance of all was to observe, in the 
retired life of my worthy master, virtue, without hypocrisy, huma- 
nity without weakness, his conversation always honest and simple, 
and his conduct ever conformable to his discourse. I never 



* That is, as represented by priestcraft, — Ed. 



382 



PROFESSION OF FAITH OF 



found him troubling himself whether the persons he assisted went 
constantly to vespers ; whether they went frequently to confes- 
sion, or fasted on certain days of the week : nor did I ever 
know him impose on them any of those conditions, without which 
a man might perish for want, and have no hopes of relief from the 
devout. 

Encouraged by these observations, so far was I from affecting, 
in his presence, the forward zeal of a new proselyte, that I took no 
pains to conceal my thoughts, nor did I ever remark his being 
scandalized at this freedom. Hence have I sometimes said to 
myself, He certainly overlooks my indifference for the new mode 
of worship I have embraced, in consideration of the disregard 
which he sees I have for that in which I was educated ; as he 
finds my indifference is not partial to either. As I lived with him 
in the greatest intimacy, I learned every day to respect him more 
and more ; and as he had entirely won my heart by so many acts 
of kindness, I waited with an impatient curiosity, to know the 
principles on which a life and conduct so singular and uniform 
could be founded. 

It was some time, however, before this curiosity was satisfied. 
Before he would disclose himself to his disciple, he endeavoured 
to cultivate those seeds of reason and goodness which he had 
sown in his mind. 

In withdrawing the gaudy veil of external appearances, and pre- 
senting to my view the real evils it covered, he taught me to 
lament the failings of my fellow-creatures, to sympathize with 
their miseries, and to pity instead of envying them. Moved to 
compassion for human frailties, from a deep sense of his own, he 
saw mankind every where the victims either of their own vices or 
of those of others : he saw the poor groan beneath the yoke of 
the rich, and the rich beneath that of their own prepossessions 
and prejudices. Believe me, said he, our mistaken notions of 
things are so far from concealing our misfortunes from our view, 
that they augment those evils, by rendering trifles of importance, 
and making us sensible of a thousand wants, which we should 
never have known but from our prejudices. Peace of mind consists 
in a contempt for every thing that may disturb it. The man who 
gives himself the greatest concern about life, is he who enjoys 
it least : and he who aspires the most earnestly after happiness is, 
always the most miserable. 



A SAVOYARD VICAR. 383 

Alas ! cried I, with all the bitterness of discontent, what a 
deplorable picture do you present of human life ! If we may in- 
dulge ourselves in nothing, to what purpose are we born? If we 
must despise even happiness itself, who is there can know what 
it is to be happy ? I know, replied the good priest, in a tone and 
manner that struck me. You ! said I, so little favoured by for- 
tune ! so poor ! exiled ! persecuted ! can you be happy ? And 
if you are, what have you done to purchase happiness 1 My dear 
child, returned he, I will very readily tell you. As you have 
freely confessed to me, I will do the same to you. I will disclose 
to you, said he, embracing me, all the sentiments of my heart. 
You shall see me, if not such as I really am, at least such as I 
think myself to be ; and when you have heard my whole profession 
of faith, you will know why I think myself happy ; and, if you think 
as I do, what you have to do to become so likewise. But this 
profession is not to be made in a moment : it will require some 
time to disclose to you my thoughts on the situation of man, and 
the real value of human life ; — we will take a proper opportunity 
for an hour's uninterrupted conversation on this subject, 

As I expressed an earnest desire for such an opportunity, it 
was put off only to the next morning. It was in summer-time, 
and we rose at break of day ; when, taking me out of town, he 
led me to the top of a hill, at the foot of which ran the river Po, 
Watering the fertile vales. That immense chain of mountains 
the Alps, terminated the distant prospect. The rising sun had 
cast its orient rays over the gilded plains, and, by projecting the 
long shadows of the trees, the houses, and adjacent hills, describ- 
ed the most beautiful scene ever mortal eye beheld. One might 
have been tempted to think that nature had at this time displayed 
all its magnificence, as a subject for our conversation. Here it 
was, that, after contemplating for a short time the surrounding ob- 
jects in silence, my guide and benefactor thus began. 

Expect not either learned declamations or profound arguments ; 
I am no great philosopher, and I give myself little trouble whether 
I ever shall be such or not. But I perceive sometimes the glim- 
mering of good-sense, and have always a regard to truth. I will 
not enter into any disputation, or endeavour to refute you ; but 
only lay down my own sentiments in simplicity of heart-: con- 
sult your own, during this exposition ; this is all I require of you, 
If I am mistaken, it is undesignedly : which is sufficient to 



384 



PROFESSION OF FAITH OF 



clear me of all criminal error ; and if you are in like manner un- 
wittingly deceived, it is of little consequence : if I am right, rea- 
son is common to both ; we are equally interested in listening to 
it : and why should you not think as T do. 

I was born a poor peasant, destined by my situation to the 
business of husbandry ; it was thought, however, much more 
adviseable for me to learn to get my bread by the profession of a 
priest ; and means were found to give me a proper education. 
In this, most certainly, neither my parents nor I consulted what 
was really good, true, or useful for me to know ; but only that I 
should learn what was necessary to my ordination. I learned, 
therefore, what was required of me to learn, I said what was re- 
quired of me to say, and accordingly was made a priest.* I was 
not long, however, before I perceived too plainly, that, in laying 
myself under an obligation to be no longer a man, I had engaged 
for more than I could possibly perform. 

I was in that state of doubt and uncertainty, in which Descartes 
requires the mind to be involved in order to enable it to investi- 
gate truth. This disposition of mind, however, is too disquieting 
to last long ; its duration being owing only to vice or indolence. 
My heart was not so corrupt as to seek such indulgence ; and 
nothing preserves so well the habit of reflection, as to be more 
content with ourselves than with our fortune. 

I reflected, therefore, on the unhappy lot of mortals, always 
floating on the ocean of human opinions, without compass or rud- 
der ; left to the mercy of their tempestuous passions, with no 
other guide than an unexperienced pilot ignorant of his course, as 
well as whence he came and whither he is going. I said often to 
myself; I love the truth ; I seek, yet cannot find it ; let any one 
show it me and I will readily embrace it ; Why doth it hide its 
charms from an heart formed to adore them 1 

I have frequently experienced at times much greater evils ; and 
yet no part of my life was ever so constantly disagreeable to me 
as that interval of scruples and anxiety. Running perpetually 
from one doubt and uncertainty to another, all that I could deduce 
from any long and painful meditation was incertitude, obscurity 

* This is the manner in which all priests, or ministei-s of the gospel, are 
made ; and when so made, they become in the eyes of their followers, pious, 
holy men, capable of explaining the whole " mystery of godliness." Ed. 



A SAVOYARD i'lCAR, 385 

and contradiction ; as well with regard to my existence as my 
duty. 

What added further to my perplexity was, that being educated 
in a church whose authority being universally decisive, admits not 
of the least doubt ; in rejecting one point, I rejected in a manner 
all the rest ; and the impossibility of admitting so many absurd 
decisions, set me against those which were not so. In being told 
I must believe all, I was prevented from believing any thing, and 
I knew not where to stop. 

We have no standard with which to measure this immense 
machine ; we cannot calculate its various relations ; we neither 
know the first cause nor the final effects; we are ignorant even 
of ourselves ; we neither know our own nature nor principle of 
action ; nay, we hardly know whether man be a simple or a com- 
pound being ; impenetrable mysteries surround us on every side ; 
they extend beyond the region of sense : we imagine ourselves 
possessed of understanding to penetrate them, and we have only 
imagination. Every one strikes out a way of his own across this 
imaginary world : but no one knows whether it will lead him to 
the point he aims at. W T e are yet desirous to penetrate, to know 
every thing. The only thing we know not, is to remain ignorant 
of what it is impossible for us to know. We had much rather de- 
termine at random, and believe the thing which is not, than con- 
fess that none of us is capable of seeing the thing that is. Being 
ourselves but a small part of that great whole, whose limits sur- 
pass our most extensive views, and concerning which its Creator 
leaves us to make our idle conjectures, we are vain enough to de- 
cide what is that whole in itself, and what we are in relation to it. 

Taking a retrospect, then, of the several opinions, which had 
successively prevailed with me, from my infancy, I found that, al- 
though none of them were so evident as to produce immediate 
conviction, they had nevertheless different degrees of probability, 
and that my innate sense of truth and falsehood, leaned more or 
less to each. On this first observation, proceeding to compare, 
impartially and without prejudice, these different opinions with 
each other, I found that the first and most common, was also the 
most simple and most rational ; and that it wanted nothing more s 
to secure universal suffrage, than the circumstance of having been 
last proposed. 

49 



3S6 



PROFESSION OF FAITK OF 



The love of truth, therefore, being all my philosophy, and my 
method of philosophizing the simpie and easy rule of common 
sense, which dispensed with the vain subtilty of argumentation, I 
re-examined, by this rule, all the interesting knowledge I was 
possessed of.; resolved to admit, as evident, every thing to which 
I could not, in the sincerity of my heart, refuse my assent ; to 
admit also, as true, all that appeared to have a necessary con- 
nection with the former, and to leave every thing else as uncer- 
tain, without rejecting or admitting it, determined not to trouble 
myself about clearing up any point which did not tend to utility in 
practice. 

But, after all, who am I ? What right have I to judge of these 
things ? And what is it that determines my conclusions 1 If, sub- 
ject to the impressions I receive, these are formed in direct con- 
sequence of those impressions, I trouble myself to no purpose in 
these investigations. It is necessary, therefore, to examine my- 
self, to know what instruments are made use of in such researches, 
and how far I may confide in their use. 

[The Vicar here goes into a long disquisition upon matteiv 
cause of motion, spirit, freedom of the human will, &c ; which is 
omitted.] 

I have done every thing in my power to arrive at truth ; but its 
force is elevated beyond my reach. If my faculties fail me, in 
what am I culpable 1 It is necessary for truth to stoop to my ca- 
pacity. 

The good priest spoke with some earnestness : he was moved, 
and I was also greatly affected. I imagined myself attending to 
the divine Orpheus, singing his hymns, and teaching mankind the 
worship of the gods. A number of objections, however, to what 
he had said suggested themselves ; though I did not urge one, be- 
cause they were less solid than perplexing ; and though not con- 
vinced, I was nevertheless persuaded he was in the right. In 
proportion as he spoke to me from the conviction of his own con- 
science, mine confirmed me in the truth of what he said. 

The sentiments you have been delivering, said I to him, appear 
newer to me in what you profess yourself ignorant of, than in what 
you profess to believe. I see in the latter nearly that theism, or 
natural religion, which Christians affect to confound with atheism 
and impiety, though in fact diametrically opposite. In the present 
situation of my mind, I find it difficult to adopt precisely your opin- 



A SAVOYARD VICAR. 

ion, to be as wise as you ; to be at least, as sincere, however, I will, 
consult my own conscience on these points. Is it not that inter- 
nal sentiment which, according to your example, ought to be mv 
conductor ; and you have yourself taught me, that, after having 
imposed silence on it for a long time, it is not to be awakened 
again in a moment. 

I will treasure up your discourse in my heart, and meditate 
thereon. If when I have duly weighed it, I am as much convinced 
as you, I will trust you as my apostle, and will be your proselyte 
till death. Go on, however, to instruct me : you have only in- 
formed me of half what I ought to know. Give me your thoughts 
of revelation, the scriptures, and those mysterious doctrines, con- 
cerning which I have been in the dark from my infancy, without 
being able to conceive or believe them, and yet not knowing how 
either to admit or reject them, 

Yes, ray dear chLM said he, I will proceed to tell you what I 
think farther : I meant not to open to you my heart by halves ; but 
the desire which you express to be informed in these particulars 
was necessary to authorize me to be totally without reserve. I 
have hitherto told you nothing but what I thought might be useful 
to you, and in the truth of which I am most firmly persuaded. The 
examination which I am now going to make, is very different ; 
presenting to my view nothing but perplexity, mysteriousness, and 
obscurity : I enter on it, therefore, with distrust and uncertainty. 
I almost tremble to determine about any thing ; and shall rather 
inform you, therefore, of my doubts than of my opinions. Were 
your own sentiments more confirmed, I should hesitate to acquaint 
3'ou with mine ; but in your present sceptical situation, you would 
be a gainer by thinking as I do. Let my discourse, however^ 
carry with it no greater authority than of reason ; for I plainly con- 
fess myself ignorant, whether I am in the right or wrong. It is 
difficult indeed, in all discussions, not to assume sometimes an 
affirmative tone : but remember that all my affirmations, in treat- 
ing these matters, are only so many rational doubts. I leave you 
to investigate the truth of them; on my part/I can only promise 
to be sincere. 

You will find my exposition treat of nothing more than natural 
religion ; it is very strange that we should stand in need of any 
other ! By what means can I find out such necessity 1 In what 
respect can I be culpable, for serving God agreeably to the die- 



ass 



PROFESSION OF FAITH OF 



tates of the understanding he hath given me, — and the sentiments 
he hath implanted in my heart? What purity of morals, — what 
system of faith useful to man, — or honorable to the Creator, can I 
deduce from any positive doctrines, that I cannot deduce as well 
without it, from a good use of my natural faculties ? Let any one 
show me what can be added, either for the glory of God, the good 
of society, or my own advantage* to the obligations we are laid 
under by nature ; let him show me what virtue can be produced 
from any new worship, which is not also the consequence of mine. 
The most sublime ideas of the Deity are inculcated by reason 
alone. Take a view of the works of nature, listen to the 
voice within, and then tell me what God hath omitted to say 
to your sight, your conscience, your understanding? Where 
are the men who can tell us more of him than jje thus tells us of 
himself? Their revelations only debase the Deity, in ascribing to 
him human passions. So far from giving us enlightened notions of 
the supreme Being, their particular tenets, in my opinion, give us 
the most obscure and confused ideas. To the inconceivable 
mysteries by which the Deity is hid from our view, they add the 
most absurd contradictions. They serve to make man proud, per- 
secuting, and cruel : instead of establishing peace on earth, they 
bring fire and sword. I ask myself to what good purpose tends 
all this, without being able to resolve the question. Artificial reli- 
gion presents to my view only the wickedness and miseries of 
mankind. 

I am told, indeed, that revelation is necessary to teach mankind 
the manner in which God would be served ; as a proof of this, 
they bring the diversity of whimsical modes of worship which pre- 
vail in the world ; and that without remarking that this very diver- 
sity arises from the whim of adopting revelations. Ever since 
men have taken it into their heads to make the Deity speak, every 
people make him speak, in their own way, and say what they like 
best. Had they listened only to what the Deity hath said to their 
hearts, there would have been but one religion on earth. 

It is necessary that the worship of God should be uniform ; I 
would have it so. But is this a point so very important, that the 
whole apparatus of divine power was necessary to establish it? 
Let us not confound the ceremonials of religion with religion itself* 
The worship of God demands that of the heart ; and this when it 
is sincere, is ever uniform,, 



A SAVOYARD VICAR. 



389 



Men must entertain very ridiculous notions of the Deity, indeed, 
if they imagine he can interest himself in the gown or cassock of 
a priest, in the order of words he pronounces, or in the gestures 
and genuflections he makes at the altar. 

I did not set out at first with these reflections. Hurried on by 
the prejudices of education, and that dangerous self-conceit, which 
ever elates mankind above their sphere, as I could not raise my 
feeble conceptions to the supreme Being, I endeavoured to debase 
him to my ideas. Thus I connected relations infinitely distant 
from each other, comparing the incomprehensible nature of the 
Deity with my own. I require still farther a more immediate 
communication with the Divinity, and more particular instructions 
concerning his will : not content with reducing God to a similii 
tude with man, I wanted to be farther distinguished by his favour, 
and to enjoy supernatural lights : I longed for an exclusive and 
peculiar privilege of adoration, and that God should have revealed 
to me what he had kept secret from others, or that others should 
not understand his revelations so well as myself. 

Looking on the point at which I was arrived, as that whence 
all believers set out, in order to reach an enlightened mode of 
worship, I regarded natural religion only as the elements of all re- 
ligion. I took a survey of that variety of sects which are scattered 
over the face of the earth, and who mutually accuse each other of 
falsehood and error : I asked which of them was in the right ? 
Every one of them in their turns answered theirs. I and my par- 
tizans only think truly ; all the rest are mistaken. But how do 
you know that your sect is in the right ? Because God hath de- 
clared so. And who tells you God hath declared so ? My spiritual 
guide, who knows it well. My pastor tells me to believe so and 
so, and accordingly I believe it : he assures me that every one 
who says to the contrary, speaks falsely ; and, therefore, I listen 
to nobody who controverts his doctrine.* 

* " All of them," says a good, and learned priest, " do in effect assume to 
themselves that declaration of the apostle, not of men, neither by man, nor of 
any other creature, bitioj God." Gal. i. 1, 12. 

" But if we lay aside all flattery and disguise, and speak freely to the point, 
there will be found very little or nothing at the bottom of all these mighty boast- 
ings. For, whatever man may say or think to the contrary, it is manifest that all 
sorts of religion are handed down and received by human methods. — This 
seems to be sufficiently plain ; first, from the manner of religion's getting 
ground in the world ; and that whether we regard the first general planting of 
any persuasion, or the method of its gaining now upon private persons. For 
whence is the daily increase of any sect ? Does not the nation to which we 
belong, the country where we dwell, nay, the town or the family in which we 



390 



PROFESSION OF FAITH 



How, thought I, is not the truth every where the same ? Is it 
possible that what is true with one person can be false with another'? 
If the method taken by him who is in the right, and by him who is 
in the wrong be the same, what merit or demerit hath the one more 
than the other 1 Their choice is the effect of accident, and to im- 
pute it to them is unjust : It is to reward or punish them for being 
born in this or that country. To say that the Deity can judge us 
this manner, is the highest impeachment of his justice. 

Now, either all religions are good and agreeable to God, or if 
there be one which he dictated to man, and will punish him for 
rejecting, he hath certainly distinguished it by manifest sighs and 
tokens, as the only true one. These signs are common to all 
times and places, and are equally obvious to all mankind, to the 
young and old, the learned and ignorant, to Europeans, Indians, 
Africans and savages. If there be only one religion in the 
world that can prevent our suffering eternal damnation, and 
there be on any part of the earth a single mortal who is sincere 
and is not convinced by its evidence, the God of that religion must 
be the most iniquitous and cruel of tyrants. Would we seek the 
truth, therefore, in sincerity, we must lay no stress on the place 
and circumstance of our birth, nor on the authority of fathers and 
teachers ; but appeal to the dictates of reason and conscience con- 
cerning every thing that is taught us in our youth. It is to no 
purpose to bid me subject my reason to the truth of things which 
it is incapacitated to judge ; the man who would impose on 
me a falsehood, may bid me do the same :* it is necessary, there- 
fore, I should employ my reason even to know when it ought to, 
submit. 

All the theology I am myself capable of acquiring, by taking a 
prospect of the universe, and by the proper use of my faculties, is 

were born, commonly give us our religion ; we take that which is the growth 
of the soil ; and whatever we were born in the midst of, and bred up to, that 
profession we still keep. We are circumcised or baptized, Jews or Christians, 
or Mahometans, before we can be sensible that we are men ; so that religion is 
not the generality of people's choice, but their fate ; not so much their own act 
and deed, as the act of* others for and upon them. — Were religion our own free 
choice, and the result of our own judgment, the life and manners of men could 
not be at so vast a distance and manifest disagreement from their principles ; 
nor could they, upon every slight and common occasion, act so directly con- 
trary to the whole tenor and design of their religion.". Charron of Wisdom, 
hook ii. chap. 5. The English translator observes, that the foregoing passage 
is taken from Dr. Stanhope's translation of Charron. See the Doctor's excel- 
lent note on that passage, vol. 2, page 110. 

It is very probable, that the sincere profession of faith of the virtuous theolo- 
gian of Condom, was not very different from that of the vicar of Savoy, 



A SAVOYARD VICAR. 391 

confined to what I have laid down above. To know more, we 
must have recourse to extraordinary means. These means can- 
not depend on the authority of men : for all men being of the 
same species with myself, whatever another can by natural means 
come to the knowledge of, I can do the same ; and another man 
is as liable to be deceived as I am : and if I believe, therefore, 
what he says, it is not because he says it, but because he proves 
it. The testimony of mankind, therefore, is at the bottom of that of 
my reason, and adds nothing to the natural means God hath given 
me for the discovery of the truth. 

What then can even the apostle of truth have to tell me, of which 
I am not still to judge ? But God himself hath spoken : listen to 
the voice of revelation. That indeed, is another thing. God hath 
spoken! This is saying a great deal : but to whom hath he 
spoken ? He hath spoken to man. How comes it then that I heard 
nothing of it 1 He hath appointed others to teach xjou his word. I 
understand you : there are certain men who are to tell me what 
God hath said. I had much rather have heard it from himself; this, 
had he so pleased, he could easily have done : and I should then 
have run no risk of deception. Will it be said I am secured from 
that, by his manifesting the mission of his messengers by miracle? 
Where are those miracles to be seen 1 Are they related only in the 
books 1 Pray, who wrote these books ? — Men. — Who were wit- 
nesses to these miracles? Men. — Always human testimony! It 
is always men that tell me what other men have told them. What 
a number of these are constantly between me and the Deity ! We 
are always reduced to the necessity of examining, comparing and 
verifying such evidence. O, that God had deigned to have saved 
me all this trouble ! should I have served him with a less willing 
heart 1 

Consider, my friend, in what a terrible discussion I am already 
engaged ; what immense erudition I stand in need of, to recur 
back to the earliest antiquity ; to examine, to weigh, to confront 
prophecies, revelations, facts, with all the monuments of faith that 
have made their appearance in all the countries of the world ; to 
ascertain their time, place, authors, and occasions. How great 
the critical sagacity which is requisite to enable me to distinguish 
between pieces that are suppositions, and those which are authen- 
tic ; to compare objections with their replies, translations with 
their originals ; to judge of the impartiality of witnesses, of their 



392 



PROFESSION OF FAITH OF 



good sense, of their capacity ; to know if nothing be suppressed 
or added to their testimony, if nothing be changed, transposed or 
falsified ; to obviate the contradictions that remain, to judge what 
weight we ought to ascribe to the silence of our opponents, in re- 
gard to facts alledged against them ; to discover whether such al- 
legations were known to them ; whether they did not disdain them 
too much to make any reply ; whether books were common enough 
for ours to reach them ; or if we were honest enough to let them 
have a free circulation among us ; and to leave their strongest 
objections in full force. 

Again, supposing all these monuments acknowledged to be in- 
contestable, we must proceed to examine the proofs of the mission 
of their authors : it would be necessary for us to be perfectly ac- 
quainted with the laws of chance, and the doctrine of probabilities, 
to judge what prediction could not be accomplished without a mira- 
cle ; to know the genius of the original languages, in order to dis- 
tinguish what is predictive in these languages, and what is only 
figurative. It would be requisite for us to know what facts are 
agreeable to the established order of nature and what are not so ; 
to be able to say how far an artful man may not fascinate the eyes 
of the simple, and even astonish the most enlightened spectators ; 
to know of what kind a miracle should be, and the authenticity it 
ought to bear, not only to claim our belief, but to make it criminal 
to doubt it ; to compare the proofs of false and true miracles^ and 
discover the certain means of distinguishing them ; and after all to 
tell why the Deity should choose, in order to confirm the truth of his 
word, to make use of means which themselves require so much 
confirmation, as if he took delight in playing upon the credulity of 
mankind, and had purposely avoided the direct means to pursuade 
them. 

Suppose that the divine Majesty had really condescended to 
make man the organ of promulgating its sacred will ; is it reasons- 
able, is it just, to require all mankind to obey the voice of such a 
minister, without his making himself known to be such ? Where is 
the equity or propriety in furnishing him, for universal credentials, 
with only a few particular tokens displayed before a handful of ob- 
scure persons, and of which the rest of mankind know nothing but 
by hearsay ? In every country in the world, if we should believe all 
the prodigies to be true which the common people, and the ignor- 
ant, affirm to have seen, every sect would be in the right, there 



A SAVOYARD VICAR, 



303 



would be more miraculous events than natural ones ; and the 
greatest miracle of all would be to find that no miracles, had hap- 
pened where fanaticism had been persecuted. The supreme 
Being is best displayed by the fixed and unalterable order of na- 
ture ; if there should happen many exceptions to such general 
laws, I should no longer know what to think ; and, for my own 
|)'art, I must confess I believe too much in God to believe so many 
mirftcles so little worthy of him. 

What if a man should come and harangue us in the following 
manner : " I come, ye mortals, to announce to you the will of the 
most high ; acknowledge in my voice that of him who sent me, I 
command the sun to move backwards, the stars to change their 
places, the mountains to disappear, the waves to remain fixed on 
high, and the earth to wear a different aspect." Who would not, 
at the sight of such miracles, immediately attribute them to the 
author of nature 1 Nature is not obedient to impostors ; their mi- 
racles are always performed in the highways, in the fields, or in 
apartments where they are displayed before a small number of 
spectators, previously disposed to believe every thing they see. 
Who is there will venture to determine how many eye witnesses are 
necessary to render a miracle worthy of credit 1 If the miracles 
intended to prove the truth of your doctrine, stand themselves in 
need of proof, of what use are they 1 There might as well be none 
performed at all. 

The most important examination, after all, remains to be made 
into the truth of the doctrines delivered ; for as those who say- 
that God is pleased to work these miracles, pretend that the devil 
sometimes imitates them, we are not a jot nearer than before, 
though such miracles should be ever so well attested. As the 
magicians of Pharoah worked the same miracles, even in the pre- 
sence of Moses, as he himself performed by the express command 
of God, why might not they, in his absence, from the same proofs, 
pretend to the same authority 1 Thus after proving the truth of the 
doctrine by th*e miracle, you are reduced to prove the truth of the 
miracle by that of the doctrine,* lest the works of the devil should 

* This is expressly mentioned in many places in scripture, particularly in 
Deuteronomy; chap. xiii. where it is said, that, if a prophet, teaching the wor- 
ship of strange gods, confirm his discourse by signs and wonders, and what he 
foretells comes really to pass, so far from paying any regard to his mission, the 
people should stone him to death. When the Pagans, therefore, put the apos- 
tles to death, for preaching up to them the worship of a strange God, proving 

50 



PROFESSION OF FAITH OF 



be mistaken for those of the Lord. What think you of this alter- 
native 1 

The doctrines coming from God, ought to bear the sacred cha- 
racters of the divinity ; and should not only clear up those con- 
fused ideas which enlightened reason excites in the mind ; but 
should also furnish us with a system of religion and morals, agreea- 
ble to those attributes by which only we form a conception of his 
essence. If then they teach us only absurdities, if they inspiai us 
with sentiments of aversion for our fellow creatures, and fear for 
ourselves ; if they describe the Deity as a vindictive, partial, jeal- 
ous and angry being ; as a god of war and battles, always ready to 
thunder and destroy : always threatening slaughter and revenge, 
and even boasting of punishing the innocent, my heart cannot be 
incited to love such a Deity, and I shall take care how I give up 
my natural religion to embrace such doctrines. Your God is not 
mine, I should say to professors of such a religion. A being* who 
began his dispensations with partially selecting one people, and 
proscribing the rest of mankind, is not the common father of the 
human race ; a being, who destines to eternal punishment the 
greatest part of his creatures, is not the good and merciful God 
who is pointed out by my reason. 

With regard to articles of faith, my reason tells me, they should 
be clear, perspicuous, and evident. If natural religion be insuffi- 
cient, it is owing to the obscurity in which it necessarily leaves 
those sublime truths it professes to teach : it is the business of re- 
velation to exhibit them to the mind in a more clear arid sensible 
manner ; to adapt them to his understanding, and to enable him to 
conceive, in order that he may be capable of believing them. 
True faith is assured and confirmed by the understanding ; the 

their divine mission by prophecies and miracles, I see not what could be ob- 
jected to them, which they might not with equal justice have retorted upon us. 
Now, what is to be done in this case ? there is but one step to be taken, to re- 
cur to reason, and leave miracles to themselves : better indeed had it been 
never to have had recourse to them, nor to have perplexed good sense with 
such a number of subtile distinctions. What do I talk of subtile distinc- 
tions in Christianity ! if there are such, our Saviour was in the wrong surely 
to promise the kingdom of heaven to the weak and simple ! how came he to 
begin his fine discourse on the mount, with blessing the poor in spirit, if it re- 
quires so much ingenuity to comprehend and believe his doctrines ? when you 
prove that I ought to subject my reason to his dictates, it is very well ; but to 
prove that, you must render them intelligible to my understanding : you must 
adapt your arguments to the poverty of my genius, or I shall not acknow- 
ledge you to be the true disciple of your master, or think it is his doctrines 
which you would inculcate. 



A SAVOYARD VICAR. 



395 



best of all religions is undoubtedly the clearest : that which is 
clouded with mysteries and contradictions, the worship that is to 
be taught by preaching, teaches me by that very circumstance to 
distrust it. The God whom I adore is not the God of darkness ; 
he hath not given me an understanding to forbid me the use of it. 
To bid me give up my reason is to insult the author of it. The 
minister of truth doth not tyrannise over my understanding, he en- 
lightens it. 

We have set aside all human authority, and without it I cannot 
see how one man can convince another, by preaching to him an un- 
reasonable doctrine. Let us suppose two persons engaged in a 
dispute on this head, and see how they will express themselves in 
the language generally made use of on such occasions. . 

Dogmatist. — Your reason tells you that the whole is greater 
than part ; but I tell yon, from God, that a part is greater than the 
whole. 

Rationalist. — And who are you, that dare to tell me God 
contradicts himself? In whom shall I rather believe ? in him who 
instructs me, by means of reason, in the knowledge of eternal 
truths ; or in you who would impose on me, in his name, the 
greatest absurdity ? 

D. — In me, for my instructions are more positive ; and 1 will 
prove to you incontestibly, that he hath sent me. 

R. — How ! will you prove that God hath sent you to depose 
against himself? What sort of proofs can you bring to convince 
me, is it more certain that God speaks by your mouth than by the 
understanding he hath given me ? 

D. — The understanding he hath given you ! ridiculous and con- 
temptible man ! you talk as if you were the first infidel who ever 
was misled by an understanding depraved by sin. 

R. — Nor may you, man of God ! be the first knave whose im- 
pudence hath been the only proof he could give of his divine 
mission. 

D. — How ! can philosophers be thus abusive ? 

R. — Sometimes, when saints set them the example. 

D. — Oh ! but I am authorised to abuse you, I speak on the 
part of God Almighty. 

R.-^-It would not be improper, however, to produce your cre- 
dentials before you assume your privileges. 

I). — My credentials are sufficiently authenticated. Both hea- 



396 



PROFESSION OF FAITH OF 



ven and earth are witnesses in my favour. Attend, I pray you, to 
my arguments. 

R. — Arguments ! why you do not surely pretend to any ! to tell 
me that my reason is fallacious, is to refute whatever it may say 
in your favour. Whoever refuses to abide by the dictates of rea- 
son, ought to be able to convince without making use of it. For 
supposing that in the course of your arguments you convince me, 
how shall I know whether it be not through the fallacy of reason, 
depraved by sin, and I acquiesce in what you affirm 1 Besides, 
what proof, what demonstration can you ever employ more evident 
than the axiom which destroys it 1 it is full as credible that a just 
syllogism should be false, as that a part is greater than the whole. 

D. — What a difference ! my proofs admit of no reply ; they 
are of a supernatural kind. 

R. — Supernatural ! What is the meaning of that .term 1 I do 
not understand it. 

D. — Contraventions of the order of nature, prophecies, miracles 
and prodigies of every kind. 

R. — Prodigies and miracles 1 I have never seen any of these 
things. 

D. — No matter ; others have seen them for you ; we can bring 
clouds of witnesses — the testimony of whole nations. 

R. — The testimony of what nations ! Is this a proof of the su- 
pernatural kind ? 

D. — No. But when it is unanimous, it is incontestible. 

R. — There is nothing more incontestible than the dictates of 
reason ; nor can the testimony of all mankind prove the truth of 
an absurdity. Let us see some of your supernatural proofs then* 
as the attestation of men is not so. 

D.— Infidel wretch ! It is plain the grace of God doth not speak 
to thy understanding. 

R. — Whose fault is that 1 not mine ; for according to you, it is 
necessary to be enlightened by grace to know how to ask for it. 
Begin then, and speak to me in its stead. 

D. — -Is not this what I am doing 1 but you will not hear me : 
what do you say to prophecies 1 

R. — As to prophecies" ; I say, in the first place, I have heard as 
few of them as I have seen miracles. And in the second, I say 
that no prophecy bears any weight with me* 



A SAVOYARD VICAR. , 397 

D. — Thou disciple of Satan ! And why have proohecies no 
weight with you ? 

R. — Because, to give them such weight, requires three things ; 
the concurrence of which is impossible. These are, that I 
should, in the first place, be a witness to the delivery of the pro- 
phecy ; next, that I should be witness also to the event ; lastly, 
that it should be clearly demonstrated to me that such event could 
not have followed by accident : for though a prophecy were as 
precise, clear, and determinate as an axiom of geometry ; yet as 
the perspicuity of a prediction, made at random, does not render 
the accomplishment of it impossible, that accomplishment, when 
it happens, proves nothing in fact concerning the foreknowledge 
of him who predicted it. 

You see, therefore, to what your pretended supernatural 

proofs, your miracles, and your prophecies reduce us ;- to the 

folly of believing them all on the credit of others, and of sub- 
mitting the authority of God, speaking to Our reason, to that of 
man. If those eternal truths, of which my understanding forms 
the strongest conceptions, can possibly be false, I can have no 
hope of ever arriving at certitude ; and so far from being capable 
of being assured that you speak to me from God, I cannot even 
be assured of his existence. 

You see my child, how many difficulties must be removed be- 
fore our disputants can agree ; nor are these all. Among so 
many different religions, each of which prescribes and excludes 
the other, one only must be true, if indeed there be such a one 
among them all. Now, to discover which this is, it is not enough 
to examine that one ; it is necessary to examine them all, as we 
should not, on any occasion whatever, condemn without a hear- 
ing.* It is necessary to compare objections with proofs, and to 
know what each objects to in the rest, as well as what the others 
have to offer in their defence. The more clearly any sentiment 
or opinion appears demonstrated, the more narrowly it behoves 
us to enquire, what are the reasons which prevent its opponents 
from subscribing to it. We must be very simple, indeed, to 

* Plutarch relates that the stoics, among other idle paradoxes, maintained 
that in case of contradictory opinions, it was useless to hear the arguments of 
both parties ; for, say they, either the first writer has proved his proposition, or 
he has not. If he has proved it, all is said that is required, and the adverse 
party ought to be condemned ; if he has not proved it, he is in the wrong, and 
ought to be rejected. — This is the way of religionists m general, they will 
hear but one side of a question. 



395 PROFESSION OF FAITH OF 

think an attention to the theologists of our own party sufficient 
to instruct us in what our adversaries have to offer. Where shall 
we find divines, of any persuasion, perfectly candid and honest ? 
Do they not all begin to weaken the arguments of their opponents* 
before they proceed to refute them ? Each is the oracle of his 
party, and makes a great figure among his partizans, with such 
proofs as would expose him to ridicule among those of a different 
persuasion. Are you desirous of gaining information from books ? 
What a fund of erudition will not this require ! How many 
languages must you learn ! How many libraries must you turn 
over ! And who is to direct you in the choice of the books ? 
There are hardly to be found in any one country, the best books; 
on the contrary side of the question, and still less is it to be ex- 
pected we should find books on all sides. The writings of the 
adverse and absent party, where they even found, would be very 
easily refuted. The absent are always in the wrong ; and the 
most weak and insufficient arguments, laid down with a confident 
assurance, easily efface the most sensible and valid, when ex- 
posed with contempt. Add to all this, that nothing is more 
fallacious than books, nor exhibit less faithfully the sentiments of 
their writers. The judgment which you formed, for instance, 
of the Roman Catholic religion, from the treatise of Bossuet, was 
very different from that which you acquired by residing among us. 
You have seen that the doctrines we maintain in our controversies 
with the protestants, are not those which are taught the common 
people, and that Bossuet's book by no means resem^es the in- 
structions delivered from the pulpit. To form a proper judgment 
of any religion, we are not to deduce its tenets from the books 
of its professors; we must go and learn it among the people. 
Each sect have their peculiar traditions, their customs, and modes 
of acceptation, which constitute the peculiar mode of their faith ; 
all which should.be taken into consideration when we form a judg- 
ment of their religion. 

How many considerable nations are there, who print no books 
of their own, and read none of ours ! How are they to judge of 
our opinions, or we of theirs ? We. laugh at them, they despise 
us ; and though our travellers have turned them into ridicule, they 
need only to travel among us, to ridicule us in their turn. In what 
country, are there not to be found men of sense and sincerity, 
friends of truth, who require only to know in order to embrace it ? 



A SAVOYARD VICAR. 



399 



And yet every one imagines truth confined to his own particular 
system, and thinks the religion of all other nations in the world 
absurd ; these foreign modes, therefore, cannot be in reality so 
very absurd as they appear, or the apparent reasonableness of ours 
is less real. 

We have three principal religions in Europe. One admits only 
of one revelation, another of two, and the third of three. Each 
holds the other in detestation, anathematizes its professlSi^f accuses 
them of ignorance, obstinacy and falsehood. What impartial per- 
son will presume to decide between them, without having first ex- 
amined their proofs and heard their reasons? That which admits 
only of one revelation is the most ancient, and seems the least 
disputable ; that which admits of three is the most modern, and 
seems to be the most consistent ; that which admits of two, and 
rejects the third, may possibly be the best ; but it has certainly 
every prepossession against it : its inconsistency stares one full in 
the face. 

In all these three revelations, the sacred books are written in 
languages unknown to the people who believe in them. The 
Jews no longer understand Hebrew ; the Christians neither Greek 
nor Hebrew ; the Turks and Persians understand no Arabic ; and 
even the modern Arabs themselves speak not the language of 
Mahomet. Is not this a very simple manner of instructing man- 
kind, by talking to them always in a language which they do not 
comprehend ? But these books, it will be said, are translated ; a 
mighty pretty answer ! Who can assure me they are translated 
faithfully, or that it is even possible they should be so 1 Who can 
give me a sufficient reason why God, when he hath a mind to 
speak to mankind, should stand in need of an interpreter 1 

I can never conceive, that what every man is indispensably 
obliged to know, can be shut up in these books : or that he who 
is incapacitated to understand them, or the persons who explain 
them, will be punished for involuntary ignorance. But we are 
always plaguing ourselves with books. What a frenzy ! Because 
Europe is full of books, the Europeans conceive them to be in- 
dispensable, without reflecting that three fourths of the world knew 
nothing at all about them. Are not all books written by men ? 
How greatly, therefore, must man have stood in need of them, to 
instruct him in his duty ; and by what means did he come to the 
knowledge of such duties, before books were written 1 Either he 



400 



CONFESSION OF FAITH OF 



must have accquired such knowledge himself, or it must have 
been totally dispensed with. 

We Roman Catholics, make a great noise about the authority 
of the church : but what do we gain by it, if it requires as many 
proofs to establish this authority as other sects require immediately 
to establish their doctrines 1 The church determines that the 
church hath a right to determine. Is not this a special proof of 
its authority 1 And yet depart from this, and we enter into end- 
less discussions. 

Do you know many Christians, who have taken the pains to ex- 
amine carefully into what the Jews have alledged against us ? 
If there are a few who know something of them, it is from what 
they have met with in the writings of Christians : a very pretty 
manner truly of instructing themselves in the arguments of their 
opponents ! But what can be done ? If any one should dare to pub- 
lish among us such books as openly espouse the cause of Judaism, 
we should punish the author, the editor, and the bookseller.* 
This policy is very convenient, and very sure to make us always 
in the right. We can refute at pleasure those who are afraid to 
speak. 

Those among us, also, who have an opportunity to converse 
with the Jews, have but little advantage. These unhappy people 
know they lie at our mercy ; the tyranny we exercise over them, 
renders them justly timid and reserved ? they know how far cruelty 
and injustice are compatible with Christian chanty : what, there- 
fore, can they venture to say to us, without running the risk of in- 
curring the charge of blasphemy ? Avarice inspires us with zeal 
and they are too rich not to be ever in the wrong. 

The most sensible and learned among them are the most cir- 
cumspect and reserved. We make a convert, perhaps, of some 
wretched hireling, to calumniate his sect ; set a parcel of pitiful 
brokers disputing, who give up the point merely to gratify us ; but 
while we triumph over the ignorance or meanness of such wretched 
opponents, the learned among them smile in contemptuous silence 
at our folly. 

* Among a thousand known instances, the following stands in no need of 
comment. The Catholic divines of the sixteenth century having condemned 
all the Jewish books, without exception, to be burned, a learned and illustrious 
theologue, who was consulted on that occasion, had very nigh involved himself 
in ruin, by being simply of opinion that such of them might be preserved as did 
not relate to Christianity, or treated of matters foreign to religion. 



A SAVOYARD VICAR, 



401 



But do you think that in places where they might write and 
speak securely, we should have so much the advantage of them 1 
Among the doctors of the Sorbonne, it is as clear as day-light, 
that the predictions concerning the Messiah relate to Jesus Christ. 
Among the Rabbins at Amsterdam, it is just as evident they have 
no relation to him. I shall never believe that I have acquired a 
sufficient acquaintance with the arguments of the Jews, till they 
compose a free and independent state, and have their schools and 
universities, where they may talk and discourse with freedom and 
impunity. Till then, we can never truly know what they have to 
say. 

At Constantinople, the Turks make known their reasons, and 
we durst not publish ours : there it is our turn to submit. If 
the Turks require of us to pay to Mahomet, in whom we do not 
believe, the same respect which we require the Jews to pay to 
Jesus Christ, in whom they believe as little ; can the Turks be in 
the wrong, and we in the right ? On what principles of equity can 
we resolve that question, in our own favour ? 

Two thirds of mankind are neither Jews, Mahometans, nor 
Christians ; how many millions of men, therefore, must there be 
who never heard of Moses, of Jesus Christ, or of Mahomet ! Will 
this be denied ? Will it be said that our missionaries are dispersed 
over the face of the whole earth 1 This indeed is easily affirmed ; 
but are there any of them in the interior of Africa, where no Euro- 
pean hath ever yet penetrated 1 Do they travel through the inland 
parts of Tartary, or follow on horseback the wandering hordes, 
whom no stranger ever approaches, and who, so far from having 
heard of the Pope, hardly know any thing of their own Grand 
Lama ? Do our missionaries traverse the immense continent of 
America, where there are whole nations still ignorant that the peo- 
ple of another world have set foot on theirs 1 Are there any of 
them in Japan, from whence their ill behaviour hath banished them 
for ever, and where the fame of their predecessors are transmitted 
to succeeding generations, as that of artful knaves, who, under 
cover of a religious zeal, wanted to make themselves imperceptibly 
masters of the empire ? Do they penetrate into the harams of 
the Asiatic princes, to preach the gospel to millions of wretched 
slaves ] What will become of the women in that part of the world, 
for want of a missionary to preach the gospel to them 1 Must 
every one of them go to hell for being a recluse ? 



402 



PROFESSION OF FAITH OF 



But were it true that the gospel is preached in every part of the 
earth, the difficulty is not removed. On the eve preceding the 
arrival of the first missionary in any country, some one person of 
that country expired without hearing the glad tidings. Now, 
what must we do with this one person ? Is there but a single 
individual in the whole universe, to whom the gospel of Christ is 
not made known, the objection which presents itself, on account 
of this one person, is as cogent as if it included a fourth part of the 
human race. 

Again, suppose the ministers of the gospel actually present and 
preaching in those distant nations, how can they reasonably expect 
to be believed on their own word, and that their hearers will not 
scrupulously require a confirmation of what they teach ? Might 
not any one of the latter very reasonably say to them, " You tell 
me of a God who was born and put to death near two thousand 
years ago, at the other end of the world, and in I know not what 
obscure town ; assuring me that all those who do not believe in 
this mysterious tale are damned. These are things too strange to 
be credited on the sole authority of a man, who is himself a perfect 
stranger." 

Why hath your God brought those events to pass, of which he 
requires me to be instructed, at so great a distance ? It is a crime 
to be ignorant of what passes at the Antipodes ? Is it possible 
for me to divine that there existed, in the other hemisphere, 
the people of the Jews, and the city of Jerusalem? I might as 
well be required to know what happened in the moon. You are 
come, you say, to inform me ; but why did you not come time 
enough to inform my father ? Or why do you damn that good old 
man, because he knew nothing of the matter ? Must he be eternal- 
ly punished for your delay? he who was so just, so benevolent, and 
so desirous of knowing the truth ! Be honest,' and suppose your- 
self in my place. Do you think, upon your testimony alone, that 
I can believe all these incredible things you tell me? or reconcile 
so much injustice with the character of that just God, whom you 
pretend to make known ? Let me first, I pray you, go and see 
this distant country, where so many miracles have happened, 
totally unknown here. Let me go and be well informed why the 
inhabitants of that Jerusalem presumed to treat God like a thief 
or a murderer ? 



A SAVOYARD VICAR. 403 

They did not, you will say, acknowledge his divinity. How 
then can I, who never have heard of him, but from you? You 
add, that they were punished, dispersed, and led into captivity ; 
not one of them ever approaching their former city. Assuredly 
they deserved all this : but its present inhabitants, what say they 
of the unbelief and deicide of their predecessors ? They deny it, 
and acknowledge the divinity of the sacred personage just as little 
as did its ancient inhabitants. 

What ! in the same city in which your God was put to death, 
neither the ancient nor present inhabitants acknowledge his divi- 
nity ! And yet you would have me believe it, who was born near 
two thousand years after the fact, and two thousand leagues dis- 
tant from the place ! Don't you see that, before I can give credit 
to this book, which you call sacred, and of which I comprehend 
nothing, I ought to be informed from others, when and by whom 
it was written, how it hath been preserved and transmitted to you, 
what is said of it in the country, what are the reasons of those who 
reject it, though they know as well as you every thing of which you 
have informed me ? You must perceive the necessity I am under, of 
going first to Europe, to Asia, and unto Palestine, to examine into 
things myself; and that I must be an idiot to listen to you before 
I have done' this. 

Such a discourse as this appears to me not only very reasona- 
ble, but I affirm that every sensible man ought, in such circum- 
stances, to speak in the same manner, and to send a missionary 
about his business, who should be in haste to instruct and baptise 
him before he had sincerely verified the proofs of his mission. 
Now, I maintain that there is no revelation against which the 
same objections might not be made, and that with greater force, 
than, against Christianity. Hence it follows, that if there be in the 
world but one true religion, and every man be obliged to adopt it, 
under pain of damnation, it is necessary to spend our lives in the 
study of all religions, to visit the countries where they have 
been established, and examine and compare them with each other. 
No man is exempted from the principle duty of his species, and 
no one hath a right to confide in the judgment of another. The 
artisan, who lives only by his industry, the husbandman, who can- 
not read, the timid and delicate virgin, the feeble valetudinarian, 
all without exception, must study, meditate, dispute, and travel 
the world over, in search of truth. There would be no longer any 



404 



PROFESSION OF FAITH OF 



settled inhabitants in a country, the face of the earth being covered' 
by pilgrims, going from place to place, at great trouble and ex- 
pence, to verify, examine and compare the several different sys- 
tems and modes of worship to be met with in various countries. 
We must, in such a case, bid adieu to arts and sciences, to trade, 
and all the civil occupations of life. Every other study must give 
place to that of religion ; while the man who should enjoy the 
greatest share of health and strength, and make the best use of 
his time and his reason, for the greatest term of years allotted to 
human life, would, in the extreme of old age, be still perplexed 
where to fix : and it would be a great thing, after all, if he should 
learn before his death what religion he ought to have believed and 
practised during life. 

Do you endeavour to mitigate the severity of this method, and 
place as little confidence as possible in the authority of men 1 In 
so doing you place the greatest confidence : for if the son of a 
Christian does right, in adopting, without a scrupulous and impar- 
tial examination, the religion of his father, how can the son of a 
Turk do wrong, in adopting in the same manner, the religion of 
Mahomet ? I defy all the persecutors in the world to answer this 
question in a manner satisfactory to any person of common sense. 
Nay, some of them, when hard pressed by such arguments, will 
sooner admit that God is unjust, and visits the sins of the fathers 
on the children, than give up their cruel and persecuting principles. 
Others, indeed, elude the force of these reasons, by civilly sending 
an angel to instruct those, who, under invincible ignorance, live, 
nevertheless, good moral lives. A very pretty device, truly, that 
of the angel ! not contented with subjecting us to their machinery, 
they would reduce the Deity himself to the necessity of employ- 
ing it. 

See* my son, to what absurdities we are led by pride, and the 
spirit of persecution, by being puffed up by our own capacity, and 
conceiving that we possess a greater share of reason than the rest 
of mankind. I call to witness that God of peace whom I adore, 
and whom I would make known to you, that my researches have 
been always sincere : but seeing that they were, and always must 
be, unsuccessful, and that I was launched out into a boundless 
ocean of perplexity, I returned the way I came, and Confined my 
creed within the limits of my first notions. I could never believe 
that God required me, under pain of damnation, to be so very 



A SATO YARD VICAR. 



405 



learned. I, therefore, shut up all my books : that of nature lies 
open to every eye. It is from this sublime and wonderful volume 
that I learn to serve and adore its divine Author. No person is 
excusable for neglecting to read in this book, as it is written in an 
universal language, intelligible to all mankind. Had 1 been born 
in a desart island, or never seen a human creature beside myself ; 
had I never been informed of « what had formerly happened in a 
certain corner of the world ; I might yet have learned by the ex- 
ercise and cultivation of my reason, and by the proper use of those 
faculties God hath given me, to know and love him ; I might 
hence have learned to love and admire his power and goodness^ 
and to have discharged my duty here on earth. 

Such is the involuntary scepticism in which I remain : this scep- 
ticism, however, is not painful to me, because it extends not to any 
essential point of practice ; and as my mind is firmly settled re- 
garding the principles of my duty, I serve God in the sincerity of 
my heart. In the mean time, I seek not to know any thing more 
than what relates to my moral conduct ; and as to those dogmas, 
which have no influence over the behaviour, and which many per- 
sons give themselves so much trouble about, I am not at all solicit- 
ous concerning them.' 

Thus, my young friend, have I given you with my own lips a re- 
cital of my creed, such as the supreme Being reads it in my heart. 
You are the first person to whom I have made this profession : 
you are also the only one, perhaps, to whom I shall ever make it. 

You are now arrived at the critical term of life, in which the 
mind opens itself to conviction, in which the heart receives the 
form and character which it bears during life, whether good or ill* 
Its substance grows afterwards hard, and receives no new impres- 
sions. Now is the time, therefore, to impress on your mind the 
seal of truth. If I were more positive in myself, I should have as- 
sumed a more decisive and dogmatical air ; but, what can I do 
more? I have opened to you my heart, without reserve: what I 
have thought certain, I have given you as such ; my doubts I have 
declared as doubts, my opinions as opinions ; and have given you 
my reasons for both. It remains, now, for you to judge ; you 
have taken time ; this precaution is wise, and makes me think 
well of you. Begin by bringing your conscience to a state de- 
sirous of being enlightened. Be sincere with yourself. Adopt 
those of my sentiments which you are persuaded are true, and 



406 



PROFESSION OF FAITH OF 



reject the rest. You are not yet so much depraved by vice to run 
the risk of making a bad choice. I should propose to confer to- 
gether sometimes on these subjects ; but as soon as ever we enter 
into disputes we grow warm ; obstinacy and vanity interfere, and 
sincerity is banished. For my own part, it was not till after 
several years of meditation that my sentiments became fixed ; 
these, however, I still retain, my conscience is easy, and I am con- 
tent. Were I desirous to begin a new examination into the truth 
of these sentiments, I could not do it with a more sincere love to 
truth : and my mind at present less active, would be less in a state 
to discover it. I purpose, therefore, to remain as I am, lest my taste 
for contemplation should become insensibly an idle passion ; lest 
it should make me indifferent to the discharge of my practical du- 
ties. Above half my life is already spent, the remainder will not 
afford me time more than sufficient to repair my errors by my vir- 
tues. If I am mistaken, it is not wilfully. That Being, who 
searches the hearts of men, knows that I am not fond of ignorance. 
But under my present incapacity to instruct myself better, the only 
method that remains for me to extricate myself, is a good life, 



A LETTER OF ROUSSEAU TO HIS BOOKSELLER 
AT THE HAGUE. 

Sir, — I am very sorry for that embarrassment which you tell me 
you lie under, on account of the Savoyard's Creed, inserted in my 
Emilius ; but I declare to you again, once for all, that no 
threats, no violence, shall ever prevail on me to suppress a sylla- 
ble of what I have written. As you did not think it necessary to 
consult me with regard to the contents of my manuscript, when 
you treated for the copy, you have no right to make application to 
me now, on account of the obstacles you may meet with to its 
publication : especially as to the bold truths scattered up and down 
in my other works, might very naturally suggest to you, that this 
was by no means exempt from the like. I am astonished you 
should ever conceive that a man, who takes so many precautions 
that his works may not be altered after his decease, would permit 
them to be mutilated during his life. time. 



A SAVOYARD VICAR. 



407 



With respect to the several reasons you have urged, you might 
have spared yourself that trouble, by supposing that I had myself 
reflected on what is proper to be done. You tell me that I am 
censured by people of my own way of thinking. But, this cannot 
possibly be ; for I who certainly am of my own way of thinking, 
approve what I have done ; nor is there any action of my whole life 
with which my heart is more perfectly satisfied. In ascribing glory 
to God, and endeavouring to promote the good of mankind, I have 
done my duty ; whether they profit by it or not. I would not give 
a straw to convert their censure to applause. As for the rest, to 
take things in the worst light, what can the world do to me more 
than the infirmities of my nature will very speedily do of them- 
selves ? The public can neither confer nor deprive me of my re- 
ward ; this depends not on any human power. You see, therefore, 
that my measures are taken let what will happen ; for which rea- 
son, I would advise you to press me no farther on the subject ; as 
every thing you can possibly advance will be absolutely to no 
purpose. 



RELIGIOUS DOGMAS; 

THEIR ORIGIN AND CONSEQUENCES. 



This Article first appeared in "The Prospect," It was written by a 
Mr. Taylor, an Englishman, a particular friend of Elihu Palmer, editor 
of that work. 



Religion, in its most common acceptation, is a complex idea 
compounded of three things totally distinct from each other ; the 
first I shall mention is the observance of certain rights and cere- 
monies, such as circumcision — baptism— fasting on particular 
days — feasting on others — abstaining from pleasures, and many 
other external symbols which have, by some, been considered as 
the sum total of religion. 2dly. There is included in the idea of 
religion, an assent to certain metaphysical propositions, such as 
the nature and properties of the supreme intelligence, the extent 
of his interference in the affairs of this world, and the nature and 
essence of the human soul. 3dly. The word religion has also 
included in it an approbation of some systems of morality, sup- 
posed to be deduced as a necessary inference from the articles of 
belief. Hence it has been said, morality itself, or the knowledge 
and practice of duties alone, is not religion, without it be accom- 
panied with the observance of certain rites, and the belief in a 
metaphysical creed. Neither is the observance of the establish- 
ed ceremonies to be considered as acts of religion, unless the pre- 
scribed duties be also fulfilled ; but above all things the mind must 
give its assent to the metaphysical creed. Finally, this metaphy- 
sical creed, which in every case is so essentially necessary, is not 
of itself religion. Ceremonies must be observed, and that kind 



RELIGIOUS DOGMAS. 



409 



of morality, deduceable from an absurd creed, must be adhered to, 
as far as the weakness of our supposed fallen nature will allow. 

Nothing could have supported extravagant rights and cere- 
monies, or chained men's minds down to absurd creeds if these 
had not been artfully interwoven with a plausible system of mo- 
rality ; nor would men have submitted to call that good which is 
in its nature evil, or that evil, which is naturally good, if the mind 
had not been prepossessed with a false creed. 

It is, therefore, my intention to inquire how this association of 
three ideas totally distinct came to take place and assume the 
name of religion — what connexion they have in nature — whether 
they may not be separated without injury to morality ; and, 
finally, having thus stripped morality of the load with which it has 
been incumbered, we shall then see what ought to be the idea or 
definition of true religion. 

As it would take up too much time to examine the whole of 
these propositions, we shall content ourselves with an investiga- 
tion of the probable origin of rights, ceremonies, and creeds. In 
all ages mankind have believed in the existence of celestial 
beings, who have been supposed to direct the affairs of this lower 
world, and have been anxious to know their will, and as far back 
as the history of man has been preserved, the practice was 
to have recourse to oracles ; and, frequently, it is said, antici- 
pating the wishes of man, communicated their will in dreams or 
visions : but as oracles and dreams were always ambiguous, a 
class of men sprung up, who, taking advantage of the passions of 
the ignorant, pretended to a superior skill in the interpretation of 
these imaginary enigmas : this was found to be so profitable an 
employment, that its professors, desirous of converting it into a 
trade, wherein many hands might be employed, under the direc- 
tion, and for the emolument of one chief ; taught their pupils that 
certain appearances in nature, denoted certain purposes of the 
gods ; hence the management of the Urim and Thummim among 
the Jews, which answers to the purpose of reading cards or cups, 
by old women of the present day: of the same kind also, were pre- 
dictions from the appearance of the entrails of sacrificed animals, 
and the manner of the flight of birds. This was the origin of the 
priesthood and of priestcraft. Afterwards the followers of the craft, 
while they were deceiving the world by lies, were themselves 

52 



410 



RELIGIOUS DOGMAS 



deceived, believing, as they did, implicitly in the correspondences 
taught or transmitted to them from the first deceivers. 

As the whole invention of converting lying into a trade was 
only that its followers might live in splendid idleness ; and as 
money was not then a representative for wealth, sacrifices and 
offerings were invented: the first to satisfy the hunger of the 
priests, the second to procure them the gratification of their pas- 
sions : and as in those days the people were accustomed to bar- 
ter, and to gave one substantial object for another, it was neces- 
sary to give them some plausible reason that might satisfy the 
minds of the people, as to the strange absurdity and injustice of 
taking a bullock, or a ram of the best of their flocks for that which 
cost nothing, they were therefore told, that these sacrfices and 
offerings were pleasing and acceptable to the gods, and that for 
these small donations, or rather bribes, the heavenly powers 
would be propitious, and change their absolute decrees. 

This period of deception may be called the age of oracles, and 
it lasted as long as the priests were moderate in their demands ; 
while they preserved some show of decency in their manners, and 
while the characters and actions of their gods were such as indi- 
cate a divine origin ; but when the priests became too rapacious 
and greedy, and when their morals and the morals ascribed to 
their gods grew to be so dissolute and abandoned that they had 
more the appearance of demons and tyrants, than of gods, and 
men desirous of the happiness of the human race, then this super- 
stition, after combating with reason for several centuries, was 
obliged to give place to another equally absurd and wicked, but 
which in its commencement gained the approbation of the people 
by the purity of the lives of the first promulgators : this is the 
doctrine of discovering the will of gods from books of scripture, 
Oracles or dreams were then said to be abandoned as improper 
means of communicating the will of gods to men. 

Demons, it is said, had taken advantage of those means and _ 
had egregiously deceived the people, insomuch, that the will of 
demons or evil spirits were generally substituted for that of the 
true God. A doctrine which gained an easy belief from the peo- 
ple of *hose times, as the will of the gods expressed by the oracles 
tended more frequently to the destruction than preservation of man- 
kind. It was said, also, that to prevent the interference of devils 
or false (lying) gods, the only true God had written or caused to 



RELIGIOUS DOGMAS. 



411 



be written in some ancient manuscript books, some of them in 
the language of Paradise which was almost forgotten, and hardly 
understood, and others in the prevailing language of that time, 
which was the Greek ; that they ordered these books to be collected 
and preserved for the instruction of men in all ages and in every 
nation ; and he promises, that this shall be his unalterable will 
and last testament ; that he will no longer confuse or perplex the 
people of the earth with new regulations and laws ; and finally, 
that he would, to the end of time, continue a succession of priests 
whose trade it should be to interpret those books, and reconcile 
their contradictions, for which they are to receive money, and 
thereby put an end to sacrifices. 

It is evident that the inventors of this doctrine had the same 
end in view, with those others who invented correspondences 
and the interpretation of dreams : namely, to form it into a trade 
or craft for the mutual benefit of the concerned : though some 
good people have been surprised that there ever should exist such 
villany as to impose upon mankind by falsifying the divine being, 
and making God as it were accessary to their cr anes. To which 
it may be answered, that this species of villany proceeds from a 
most accursed principle, which never was more prevalent than 
now, namely, " That such is the perverse nature of man, so prone 
is he to do evil that it is necessary to deceive him in order that he 
may be persuaded to pursue his own good." Let a man's mind 
be possessed of this principle, and add to it talents and opportu- 
nity, and he will not hesitate to raise his fortune and power by 
taking sacrilegious liberties with the character of the Supreme 
Intelligence. 

Having got possession of some of those books, and having re- 
served to themselves the interpretation of them, they began to 
teach the world doctrines suited to their own views and interest, 
all of which will be examined in due time, by the eye of reason 
and the standard of nature. It was unfortunate for mankind that 
there should be so many books (written in different centuries, and 
by men of contrary sentiments) exhibited to the world as the will 
of God, and holding out, as these books do, the character of the 
Deity in so many different points of view ; sometimes as a san- 
guinary tyrant, who cannot be satisfied but by blood and sacrifices, 
and every species of absurd formality ; — at other times as a kind, 
beneficent being, who held sacrifices, new moons, and the most 



412 



RELIGIOUS DOGMAS. 



solemn meetings as an abomination ; — at one time declaring him- 
self the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and afterwards pro- 
fessing to be the God of the whole earth. In one book issuing 
a decree that the children shall bear the sins of their fathers even 
to the third and fourth generation, and in another repealing that 
law when it became disagreeable to the people, and they had made 
use of a taunting proverb concerning it, viz. " The fathers have 
eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge by it." 
Jer. 21, 29. These contradictions could not fail to cause dispute, 
but they have done more, they have been the cause of bloody and 
destructive wars, which have not only disgraced religion, but hu- 
man nature, and put back the age of reason for many centuries. 
This was an accident, however, that was unavoidable, for the 
Jews had from a national pride, and by universal consent, conse- 
crated all their ancient books that were saved after their return 
from Babylon, and the first Christians, however willing they might 
be, had not sufficient authority to bring in question the fact of their 
inspiration. 

Towards the end of the age of oracles, and the commencement 
of the age we are now speaking of, which may be termed the age 
of scripture belief, every thing written in the ancient Hebrew 
tongue, was sought after with wonderful avidity. It was a mania 
that possessed the world at that time, as antique medals and pic- 
tures have done at other periods ; they sought for them as for 
hidden treasure, and every fragment that could be rescued from 
obscurity and the teeth of time, was considered of inestimable 
value. It was the same with any Greek epistle or fragment that 
in the slightest manner mentioned the name of Jesus Christ or his 
disciples. This mania lasted for several centuries, during which 
time the scriptures, or manuscripts which they called the word of 
God, were growing in the bulk and matter for disputation. For- 
geries of epistles and gospels in Greek, were numerous ; those 
in Hebrew were fewer, because not many understood that lan- 
guage ; beside there were more scripture already in the Hebrew, 
than suited the doctrines which the first Christians were anxious 
to establish. For a long time, therefore, it was the wish of many 
that several of the Hebrew books were out of the sacred cata- 
logue, it was found so difficult to make them bend to the new 
opinions. 



RELIGIOUS DOGMAS. 



413 



When the age of scripture belief was in its full ; and the peo^ 
pie as ignorant as could be wished by designing men, a council 
was called who took upon them to determine upon the validity of 
the last will and testament of Almighty God. By this council 
several of the books were deprived of their sacred character ; but 
whether the true or the forged is uncertain. 

From that period the teachers and the taught have been equally 
deceiving and deceived ; we do not, therefore, charge any Chris- 
tians of the present day with preaching a false doctrine on pur- 
pose to deceive ; but we say of them as Charles V., Emperor of 
Germany, said of Luther and Calvin — -they are seduced by their 
own opinions, and that their own interest, coupled with that most 
abominable of all principles mentioned above, namely, that men 
must be deceived for their own good, causes them to despise 
the dictates of reason, and assist in perpetuating the deception. 

The age of scripture belief has been the most dreadful sera, 
and the most calamitous to the human race that history has 
recorded. In one war, the crusades, which was about a rotten 
piece of wood, the cross of Christ, there was more money spent, 
blood shed, cruelties committed, than in any war either before or 
since. At the taking of Jerusalem 20,000 Turks were slain, and 
notwithstanding a proclamation of pardon, the Christians put to 
death all the Turks found in the city without regard to age or sex, 
with the same cea/, as the authors of those days call it, wherewith 
Saul slew the Gibeonites. 

It is not my intention at this time to enumerate the evils that 
this system has occasioned. Experience has sufficiently shown 
how miserable man has been during the whole age of scripture 
belief, and that the system itself is giving way very fast to the 
light of reason, which alone can give man an adequate idea of an 
intelligent first cause and of the means which he has provided for 
our improvement and happiness. 

It is only my intention to show that the true God can only be 
known by the investigation of reason contemplating the mighty 
fabric of the universe, and perceiving throughout the whole a unity 
of design and a wonderful contrivance. This is the first percep- 
tion or glimpse of the Deity ; the actions upon which all our fu- 
ture reasonings must be founded, and from which ali the know- 
ledge we can attain of him or of his ways with man is drawn. By 
beginning at the source we shall see nothing in the Supreme Ifctel- 



414 



RELIGIOUS DOGMAS. 



ligence but immense goodness and power, no partialit es, no in« 
justice or eternal punishment for crimes of a moment, or for 
acting in obedience to the unalterable laws of nature. — Led by 
the light of reason man will perform his duty as a son under the 
eye of a kind parent ; he will perform his duty because he sees it 
to be the road to self-satisfaction, and that he is acting a part in a 
great work, which he is desirous of seeing accomplished. He 
considers himself as belonging to the great family of mankind, 
and is assured that his own happiness cannot be complete without 
a regard to the happiness of the whole family. In his opinion, 
heaven itself could not be the seat of happiness, if such a place as 
hell has an existence in the universe. But he who has no other 
check to his vicious propensities but a fear of hell-fire, thinks that 
were that obstacle removed, man would riot in vice and in the 
gratification of every lust, little does he think that virtue may be 
loved and followed with as much ardour, if not more, than vice, 
when we have a good opinion of the justice and goodness of God. 
But how is it possible men should be virtuous when the God they 
pretend to worship is represented as a tyrant, and unjust, whose 
forgiveness for an ill spent life may be obtained by the most ridi- 
culous ceremonies or foolish credulity. 

We have, therefore, undertaken to expose and set in its true 
light the character of the God of the Hebrews as it is represented 
in the first books of the Bible, to show that he was not the true God, 
but an imaginary being conjured up to serve the political purposes 
of Moses — to show also that men who believe in such a God 
cannot be virtuous, or good citizens, or believe in the true God ; 
and this is the only reason why so much iniquity abounds. 

Although the three seras that I have noticed are remarkable in 
the history of human mind, yet it must not be understood that I 
think the principles of the Age of Reason have never made their 
appearance ; because I place that sera as following the other two, 
or that there are no other seras — no — the case is, that although 
there never has been an sera which could be justly denominated the 
Age of Reason, yet its principles have been recognised in all 
ages, and in every country were there have been men who had 
courage to divest themselves of the prevailing prejudices, and use 
the faculties of their own minds to discover truth ; and several of 
the authors of the Bible were certainly men of this description ; 
sucn were the authors of the book of Job ; of some of the Psalms 



RELIGIOUS DOGM/IS. 



415 



and several chapters of Isaiah, (for both these books appear to be 
a collection,) and also the prophet Malachi and Jesus the son of 
Sirach, (apocryphal,) and finally Jesus Christ himself and the au- 
thors of the Apostles and Jude — all these were men evidently 
exercising their own reason on the works of God, in regard to 
which men will in all ages, and in every country without commu- 
nication with each other, have nearly the same sentiments, and be 
prompted by reflection to the same duties. — Universal good will 
and peace to man. 

We now proceed to examine the character of the God of the 
Hebrews. 

It is to be presumed that the first authentic history of the Jews 
commences with Abraham, and that some of the anecdotes re- 
corded of Mm may be true, but prior to that period all is fiction ; 
founded either upon ancient tradition, or the dreams of philoso- 
phers, respecting the creation, and an universal deluge, which, by 
inspecting the surface of this globe appears an event, in some de- 
gree probable to have happened ; so that although we go back to 
the period which we consider altogether fiction, to trace the cha- 
racter of the God, it suits our purpose well enough ; for the whole 
being only to show what ideas those writers had of their God, 
(which is seen as well in fiction as in true history,) and, consequent- 
ly, that the books of Moses, as they represent a God, changeful 
in his purposes : given to caprice and anger ; sometimes con- 
demning his own institutions ; confounding in his punishments the 
innocent with the guilty ; deceiving his creatures by equivocations 
and lies, and announcing his will in ambiguous language, should 
not be taken as a rule of conduct ; or the dictates of the Supreme 
Intelligence. For if we desire that men should have good moral 
character themselves, the God whom they worship must be as 
perfect in his moral attributes as the mind of man can possibly 
conceive. This is the only protection against the oppression and 
tyranny of wicked men. Men could not then be imposed upon 
by words, we should not then hear of just- war ; and we should 
discover the cheat, as soon as we should now, were any person to 
talk of just robbery or honest thieving. We should not then be 
persuaded to kill one man for the crimes of another, because he 
speaks the same language, or wears a coat of the same colour. 
But how shall we be just if our God be unjust] how shall we be 



416 



RELIGIOUS DOGMAS. 



humane if he be cruel and vindictive ? how shall we be steady to 
our engagements, if God break his. In our apprehension the true 
God, or Supreme Being, can do no action of which he shall after- 
wards repent, as the God of the Hebrews is said to have repented 
that he made man, Gen. 6. 6. And it repented the Lord that he 
had made man and it grieved him at his heart. 

7. And the Lord said I will destroy man whom I have created 
from the face of the earth, both man and beast and the creeping 
things and the fowls of the air ; for it repenteth me that I have 
made them. 

It might be inquired what offence the creeping things, the 
beasts, and the fowls of the air, could give him, but the text offers 
nothing to satisfy the mind, but the caprice of an angry God. 

Although we consider the story of Eve and the apple as a fic- 
tion, and impossible to have happened in the nature of things, yet 
as we do not decide on that ground, or examine by those prin- 
ciples, because there is always a ready answer to every objection 
made to miracles, namely, that God can do any thing ; his power 
is infinite, he could make a man's nose as big as the steeple of 
Strasburgh if he pleases ; and so forth — granted. But tell me 
would the Supreme Being do an unjust thing ? would he tell lies 
on purpose to deceive ? — no, every one would answer, and yet the 
God of the Hebrews is guilty of this and much more, Gen. 11. 
17, he says to Adam, (Eve was not then in existence,) of the tree 
of knowledge of good or evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the 
day thou eatest of it thou shalt surely die. Now this was cer- 
tainly false, for he did not die on that day, nor for many years 
afterwards ; and if by dying something else was meant, then it 
comes under the charge of deceiving by ambiguous language. 
This is not all, the woman is punished who received no com- 
mandment. She might have heard of it indeed from Adam, and 
the idea she had formed was that something evil would happen as 
a necessary, natural consequence, from eating the fruit ; it does 
not appear that she had any notion of a moral consequence aris- 
ing from disobedience, for that reason the serpent found no great 
difficulty in persuading her to eat, for he spoke from his own 
knowledge — and Adam only from report. The serpent also* it 
is said was the most subtil beast of the field, this epithet he could 
not acquire but by his superior skill and knowledge — but his 
wisdom and truth availed him nothing, he is Condemned to crawl 



RELIGIOUS DOGMAS 



417 



on his belly and lick the dust of the earth, and he who was only 
accessory before the fact, and not considered as a moral agent, 
is punished with the greatest severity. 

This story bears a great similarity to the manner of writing 
among the ancients, when they endeavored to account for the 
supposed deformities of nature. Ever incapable of seeing per- 
fection ; and unwilling to believe that the Supreme Being would, 
at first, make an imperfect work ; they were forever manufac- 
turing stories to account for his spoiling the work of his own 
hands. It is probable, therefore, that the Jews picked up this fable 
among the Egyptians, and thinking it would make their history 
more perfect, inserted it at the beginning. 

We shall take no notice of the interpretation and comment upon 
this fable by the Christian writers, such as, that the serpent was 
not a real serpent, but a bad spirit in the figure of a serpent ; that 
by the transgression of Adam the human race is condemned to 
everlasting fire, &c. ; this makes the matter much worse on the 
part of God, but as it belongs properly to the character of the 
Christian God, which we are not now examining, we must 
return to the G od of the Hebrews : and passing over the story of 
the great deluge, and of Noah with his ark, looking only to the 
moral, I ask to what purpose was the old world destroyed and 
what good accrued from it. The new world soon grew to be as 
■wicked as it was possible for the old world to be, and they de- 
parted from the worship of Adonai, or the Lord, for upwards of 
700 years till it was revived by Abraham. It is said, that Sodom 
and Gomorah and all the cities of the plain, were destroyed for 
their wickedness ; but nothing is so great a proof of the vices of 
any particular period, as when great crimes are related and passed 
over without censure ; of such kind is the abomination of two 
daughters lying with their father ; — the ingratitude of Sarah to 
Hagar, and the treacherous villany of Simeon and Levi in the 
murder of Hamor and Sechem, Gen. 34. So that it does not 
appear that the moral chracter of man was at all improved by the 
destruction of the old world, and although he promises never again 
to destroy the race of man at once, he is continually finding rea- 
son to cut them off in detail, sometimes hardening their hearts to 
prevent their obedience and escape from punishment, Exod. 4, 21. 
And the Lord said unto Moses when thou goest to return to 
Egypt see that thou do all the wonders which' I have put in 

53 



41S 



RELIGIOUS D0C3IAS. 



thine hand — but I will harden his heart that he shall not let the 
children of Israel go. Would it not have been as easy to have 
softened the heart of Pharaoh as to have hardened it, when so 
many innocent people throughout the land of Egypt were to be 
sufferers through that hardness of heart. 

And when Moses went to return into Egypt according to the 
command of the Lord to perform the wonders which he put in his 
hand, it came to pass that by the way in the inn that the Lord 
met him and sought to kill him, no reason is given why the Lord 
should seek to kill Moses ; however, we are left to conjecture 
that- it was on account of his son not being circumcised ; for it 
immediately follows in the next verse, " Then Zipporah took a 
sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his 
feet, and said surely a bloody husband art thou to me, so he let 
him go. It is probable that the amiable daughter of Jethro, could 
not be persuaded by Moses to commit so great a cruelty upon her 
child, while she resided among her own kindred, but no sooner 
does he get her from home, and on the road to Egypt than he pre- 
tends to have seen the Lord, who had threatened to kill him if the 
child were not circumcised ; and, therefore, she says, surely a 
bloody husband art thou to me ; but if she had directed the sharp 
stone at the head of Moses, and thereby put an end to his exis- 
tence, the human race would have been under infinite obligations 
to the daughter of Jethro, and she would have been the saviour 
of her own nation. 

In inflicting the punishment upon the Egyptians it appears 
more like a wanton exercise of power in the Lord than to bring 
men to a sense of their duty and consequent reformation, which 
ought to be the reason of punishment. AH classes of society are 
involved in the affliction : for it is said, Exod. 12 and 29, the Lord 
smote all the first born in the land of Egypt, from the first born 
of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the first born of the cap- 
tive that was in the dungeon, and all the first bom of cattle. 
Here we see him again exercising his fury upon the dumb crea- 
tion as a drunken man in a passion with his wife, vents his rage 
against the furniture and glasses, such a God would do very well 
for a bug-bear to the ignorant Jews but never can meet with ad- 
miration or devotion by enlightened men at the close of the 18th 
century of the Christian cera, or at the dawn of the age of reason- 



miscellaneous. 



419 



LETTER OF WILLIAM PITT, 

Afterwards Earl of Chatham, addressed to the people of Eng- 
land ; first printed in the London Journal, in 1733. 

"Pure Religion and nndefiled before God and the Father, is this; to visit the 
Fatherless and Widows in their afflictions, and to keep one's self unspotted 
from the World" 

Gentlemen, whoever takes a view of the world, will find, that 
what the greatest part of mankind have agreed to call religion, has 
been only some outward exercise esteemed sufficient to work a 
reconciliation with God. It has moved them to build temples, 
slay victims, offer up sacrifices, to fast and feast, to petition and 
thank, to laugh and cry, to sing and sigh by turns ; but it has not 
yet been found sufficient to induce them to break off an amour, 
to make restitution of ill gotten wealth, or to bring the passions and 
appetites to a reasonable subjection. Differ as much as they may 
in opinion, concerning what they ought to believe, or after what 
manner they are to serve God, as they call it, yet they all agree in 
gratifying their appetites. The same passions reign eternally in 
all countries and in all ages, the Jew and Mahometan, the Christian 
and the Pagan, the Tartar and the Indian, all kinds of men who 
differ in almost every thing else, universally agree with regard to 
their passions : if there be any difference among them it is this, 
that the more superstitious, the more vicious they always are, an<d 
the more they believe, the less they practice. This is a melan- 
choly consideration to a good mind ; it is a truth, and certainly 
above all things worth our while to inquire into. We will, there- 
fore, probe the wound, and search to the bottom ; we will lay the 
axe to the root of the tree, and show you the true reason why men 
go on in sinning and repenting, and sinning again through the 
whole course of their lives ; and the reason is, because they have 
been taught, most wickedly taught, that religion and virtue are two 
things absolutely distinct ; that the deficiency of the one, might be 
supplied by the sufficiency of the other ; and that what you want 
in virtue, you must make up in religion. But this religion, so dis- 
honourable to God, and so pernicious to men, is worse than 
Atheism, for Atheism, though it takes away one great motive to 
support virtue in distress, yet it furnishes no man with arguments 
to be vicious ; but superstition, or what the world means by reli- 
gion, is the greatest possible encouragement to vice, by setting up 



420 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



something as religion, which shall atone and commute for the want 
of virtue. This is establishing iniquity by a law, the highest law ; 
by authority, the highest authority ; that of God himself. We 
complain of the" vices of the world, and of the wickedness of men, 
without searching into the true cause. It is not because they are 
wicked by nature, for that is both false and impious ; but because 
to serve the purpose of their pretended soul savers, they have been 
carefully taught that they are wicked by nature, and cannot help 
continuing so. It would have been impossible for men to have 
been both religious and vicious, had religion been made to consist 
wherein alone it does consist ; and had they been always taught 
that true religion is the practice of virtue in obedience to the will 
of God, who presides over all things, and will finally make every 
man happy who does his duty. 

This single opinion in religion, that all things are so well made 
by the Deity, that virtue is its own reward, and that happiness will 
ever arise from acting according to the reason of things, or that 
God, ever wise and good, will provide some extraordinary happi- 
ness for those who suffer for virtue's sake, is enough to support a 
man under all difficulties, to keep him steady to his duty, and to 
enable him to stand as firm as a rock, amidst all the charms of ap- 
plause, profit and honor. But this religion of reason, which all 
men are capable of, has been neglected and condemned, and 
another set up, the natural consequences of which have puzzled 
men's Understandings, and debauched their morals, more than all 
the lewd poets and atheistical philosophers that ever infested the 
world ; for instead of being taught that religion consists in action, 
or obedience to the eternal moral law of God, we have been most 
gravely and venerably told that it consists in the belief of certain 
opinions which we could form no idea of, or which were contrary 
to the clear perceptions of our minds, or which had no tendency to 
make us either wiser or better, or which is much worse had a mani- 
fest tendency to make us wicked and immoral. And this belief, this 
impious belief, arising from imposition on one side, and from want 
of examination on the other, has been called by the sacred name 
of religion, whereas real and genuine religion consists in know- 
ledge and obedience. We know there is a God, and we know his 
will, which is, that we should do all the good we can ; and we are 
assured from his perfections, that we shall find our own good in so 
doing. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



421 



And what would we have more 1 are we, after such inquiry, and 
in an age full of liberty, children still 1 and cannot we be quiet 
unless we have holy romances, sacred fables, and traditionary 
tales to amuse us in an idle hour, and to give rest to our souls, 
when our follies and vices will not suffer us to rest 1 

You have been taught, indeed, that right belief, or orthodoxy, 
will, like charity, cover a multitude of sins ; but be not deceived, 
belief of, or mere assent to the truth of propositions upon evidence 
is not a virtue, nor unbelief a vice ; faith is not a voluntary act, it 
does not depend upon the will ; every man must believe or disbe- 
lieve, whether he will or not, according as evidence appears to 
him. If, therefore, men, however dignified or distinguished, com- 
mand us to believe, they are guilty of the highest folly and absurd- 
ity, because it is out of our power, but if they command us to be- 
lieve, and annex rewards to belief, and serve penalties to unbelief, 
then they are most wicked and immoral, because they annex re- 
wards and punishments to what is involuntary, and, therefore, 
neither rewardable or punishable. It appears, then, very plainly, 
unreasonable and unjust to Command us to believe any doctrine, 
good or bad, wise or unwise ; but, when men command us to be- 
lieve opinions, which have not only no tendency to promote virtue, 
but which are allowed to commute or atone for the want of it, then 
they are arrived at the utmost pitch of impiety, then is their iniquity 
full ; then have they finished the misery, and completed the destruc- 
tion of poor mortal man ; by betraying the interest of virtue, they 
have undermined and sapped the foundation of all human happi- 
ness ; and how treacherously and dreadfully have they betrayed 
it ! A gift, well applied, the chattering of some unintelligible sounds 
called creeds ; an unfeigned assent and consent to whatever the 
church enjoins, religious worship and consecrated feasts ; repent- 
ing on a death bed ; pardons rightly sued out ; and absolution au- 
thoritatively given, have done more towards making and continuing 
men vicious, than all the natural passions and infidelity put together, 
for infidelity can only take away the supernatural rewards of virtue; 
but these superstitious opinions and practices, have not only turned 
the scene, and made men lose sight of the natural rewards of it, 
but have induced them to think, that were there no hereafter, vice 
would be preferable to virtue, and that they increase in happiness 
as they increase in wickedness ; and this they have been taught 
in several religious discourses and sermons, delivered by men 



422 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



whose authority was never doubted, particularly by a late Rev. 
prelate, I mean Bishop x\tterbury, in his sermon on these words* 
" If in this life only be hope, then we are of all men most misera- 
ble," where vice and faith ride most lovingly and triumphantly to- 
gether. But these doctrines of the natural excellency of vice, the 
efficacy of a right belief, the dignity of atonements and propitia- 
tions, have, beside depriving us of the native beauty and charms 
of honesty, and thus cruelly stabbing virtue to the heart, raised 
and diffused among men a certain unnatural passion, which we 
shall call religious hatred ; a hatred constant, deep-rooted, and 
immortal. All other passions rise and fall, die and revive again, 
but this of religious and pious hatred rises and grows every day 
stronger upon the mind as we grow more religious, because we 
hate for God's sake, and for the sake of those poor souls too, who 
have the misfortune not to believe as we do, and can we in so good 
a cause hate too much 1 The more thoroughly we hate, the better 
we are ; and the more mischief we do to the bodies and states of 
those infidels and heretics, the more do we show our love to God. 
This is religious zeal, and this has been called divinity : but re- 
member, the only true divinity is humanity. W. PITT* 

REMARKS OF ELIAS HICKS, 

On the supposed attonement, by the sufferings and death of 
Jesus Christ, for the sin of Adam and Eve in eating a forbidden 
fruit. 

Elias Hicks, a celebrated Quaker preacher, at New- York, in a 
letter addressed to the Rev. Dr. Shoemaker, dated 3d mo. 31, 
1823, speaking of the atonement, and those who believe in it, 
writes, " Surely, is it possible that any rational being, that has any 
right sense of justice and mercy, would be willing to accept for- 
giveness of his sins on such terms 1 Would he not go forward, 
and offer himself wholly up, to suffer all the penalties due to his 
crimes, rather than the innocent should suffer ? Nay, was he so 
hardy as to acknowledge a willingness to be saved through such a 
media m, would it not prove that he stood in direct opposition to 
every principle of justice and honesty, of mercy and love, and 
show himself a poor selfish creature, unworthy of notice V* 
Towards the conclusion of his letter he says, " I may now recom- 
mend thee to shake off all traditional views that thou hast imbibed 



Miscellaneous. 423 

from external evidence, and turn thy mind to the light within, as the 
only true teacher ; and wait patiently for its instructions, and it 
will teach thee more than men or books can do, and lead thee to 
a clearer sight and sense of what thou desirest to know, than I 
have words clearly to convey to thee." 

In his discourses the following sentiments have been noted and 
published ; " That the death of Jesus Christ was no more to us 
than the death of any other good man ; that he merely performed 
his part on earth, just as any other good man had done ; that he 
did not believe any thing contained in the Scriptures merely be- 
cause it was in them ; that although the miracles might have been 
a proof to those who saw them, yet they could be no proof to us, 
who did not see them. Is it possible, said he, that there is any 
person, so ignorant or superstitious, as to believe, that there 
ever was on earth such a place as the garden of Eden, or that 
Adam and Eve were really put into it, and turned out of it for eat- 
ing an apple ? My friends, it is all an allegory." 



LORD ERSKINE'S OPINION 

Of the principles that will regulate the sentence to be pronoune* 
ed upon the human species at the Day of Judgment ; extracted 
from his speech, on the trial of Stockdale, for an alledged libel on 
the English House of Commons. 

" Every human tribunal ought to take care to administer justice, 
as we look hereafter to have justice administered to ourselves. 
Upon the principles on which the Attorney-General prays sentence 
upon my client — God have mercy upon us ! — For which of us can 
present, for omniscient examination, a pure, unspotted, and fault- 
less course. — But I humbly expect that the benevolent author of 
our being will judge us as I have been pointing out for your ex- 
ample — Holding up the great volume of our lives in his hands, and 
regarding the general scope of them. If he discovers benevo- 
lence, charity, and good will to man beating in the heart, where 
he alone can look ; — if he finds that our conduct, though often 
forced out of the path by our infirmities, has been in general well 
directed ; his all-searching eye will assuredly never pursue us into 
those little corners of our lives, much less will his justice select 
them for punishment, without the general context of our existence, 



424 



CONTENTS. 



by which faults may be some times found to have grown out of 
virtues, and very many of our heaviest offences to have been graft- 
ed by human imperfection upon the best and kindest of our affec- 
tions. No, believe me, this is not the course of divine justice. If the 
general tenor of a man's conduct be such as I have represented it, 
he may walk through the shadow of death, with all his faults about 
him, with as much cheerfulness as in the common paths of life ; 
because he knows, that instead of a stern accuser to expose before 
the Author of his nature those frail passages, which like the scored 
matter in the book before you, chequers the volume of the bright- 
est and best spent life, his mercy will obscure them from the eye 
of his purity, and our repentance blot them out forever." 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE, 



Preface - - - iii 

Age of Reason, Part 1 st. - 15 

Part 2d. - 68 

Letter to a Friend - - - - - 161 
- — — to the Hon. T. Erskine, on the prosecution of 

Thomas Williams for publishing the Age of Reason 165 

Discourse to the Society of Theophilanthropists - 195 

Letter to Camille Jordan - - 203 

Essay on Dream - - . .. - 219 

Examination of passages in the New Testament - - 227 

Thoughts on a future state - - 273 

Reply to the Bishop of Llandaff - - 275 

Origin of Free-Masonry - - - - 301 

Letter to Samuel Adams - - - 332 

to Andrew A. Dean - - 320 

Miscellaneous Pieces - - 332 

Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar - - 377 

Religious Dogmas - - 408 

Letter of William Pitt to the people of England - 419 

Remarks of Elias Hicks on the Attonement - - 422 

Lord Erskine's opinion of the future judgment - « 423 



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